Opinion

Daring few tells much

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-06 14:48

The high-pitched "severe crackdown" on melamine-tainted dairy products in the wake of the 2008 Sanlu scandal once cultivated the innocent belief that producers would behave for a while. But that turns out to be our wishful thinking as new traces of melamine accumulate in the marketplace.

All tainted products in Guangdong have reportedly been recalled. But latest findings indicate the bulk of the harmful products have been shipped to the northeastern provinces.

Since the ongoing screening and rectification has specific targets, there is a good chance the products of blacklisted dairies will be ferreted out and prevented from doing more harm. Yet judging from the pattern of repeated offense by the culprits, we see a need of thorough scrutiny of the country's dairy industry.

Tracking down the dairy supplies from the already known offenders is no doubt an imperative. Beyond that, consumers deserve to know whether the rest of the products on store shelves are safe to be consumed.

The authorities have always had an eye on safeguarding public confidence in the national dairy industry. The re-emergence of melamine in homemade dairy products is certainly a lethal dose for the just recovered industry. But the only cure is a full and thorough information-sharing initiative for consumers.

The authorities must demonstrate efficiency in addressing consumer concerns as well.

The first, nagging question is the scope of the new scandal. People need to know whether this is wrongdoing by the identified few. If so, we need to guarantee that the violators will do no more harm in the future.

At this point, people share a keen interest in seeing the culprits brought to justice. But something must also be done about the system. Or there is no guarantee the same would not happen some months later.

Besides outrageous lawlessness and moral decadence on the violators' part, the return of melamine into our food chain reveals a more worrisome phenomenon - the failure of some safety-guarantee mechanism of ours.

Our compatriots generally refrain from pointing their fingers to the system. But blinding ourselves to the obvious system failure in this case can only result in future damage to the public well-being, as well as the system's own credibility.

We have heard high praises of the current food-safety monitoring mechanisms. But the new scandal shows they are not as efficient as have been portrayed. Rumor has it that some 100,000 tons of melamine-tainted milk powder discovered in 2008 is yet to be destroyed. We can only hope that is untrue. Or the hole will be too big to repair immediately.