A poisoned sense of duty

China has an unfortunate recent history of scandals involving people sickened or killed by contaminated food.

An official's response to the latest case shows one reason this keeps happening.

Tons of cowpeas from the southern island of Hainan carried residues of toxic pesticides called isocarbophos. They recently ended up in markets in some parts of the country.

But instead of warning people, authorities in the Hainan city of Sanya kept quiet.

People got no warning until officials in Wuhan, in Hubei province, released advice to avoid Hainan cowpeas. This announcement should have come immediately from Hainan authorities.

Instead the deputy director of the Hainan agriculture bureau's law enforcement team blasted his Wuhan colleagues for breaking official silence about the danger.

"It did not save face for Sanya, nor save face for the Ministry of Agriculture," he complained.

He said an unspoken rule called for Wuhan officials to simply notify their Hainan colleagues of the problem, and that Wuhan's warning to the public made it "not enough of a friend".

Someone needs to explain to food-safety officials that their job is to help save lives, not face. Their first priority must be to protect the public health.

Highly toxic pesticide should not be used on food, but China lags other nations in taking steps to prevent this.

According to a report in China Daily, the country's national food-safety law doesn't regulate their sale and use, a loophole big enough to let tons of potentially harmful products into markets.

Locally, authorities had already banned the use of these pesticides in 2004.

But even a good law won't prevent harm unless it is enforced. China Daily reporters had no trouble obtaining a price for the illegal product.

The Pesticide Action Network classifies isocarbophos as a "bad actor," meaning that it's highly toxic, a known or probable carcinogens and damaging to reproductive systems.

Symptoms of isocarbophos poisoning include excessive salivation, sweating and tearing; muscle twitching, tremors, weakness and lack of coordination; headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, cramps and diarrhea; breathing difficulties, wheezing, cough, fluid in the lungs; and blurred or darkened vision.

In severe cases people can experience seizures, incontinence and loss of consciousness.

Farmers use the banned substance because it's much cheaper than legal pesticides.

The same profit-at-any-cost rationale prompted producers of milk powder to use the chemical melamine in powdered milk in the 2008 scandal.

The immorality of risking people's lives as a cost-cutting technique is sickening.

Even more frightening, however, are the repeated failures of some food-safety authorities to inform the public of dangerous products in a timely manner.

The problem goes beyond a few inept or indifferent individuals. Something is wrong with the food-safety system.

It must be restructured so officials who inform the public about contaminated food get rewarded and those who try to hide the facts get booted.

Officials who hope their silence will save their reputations are mistaken. Their attitude is a symptom that their sense of duty is poisoned. Their loss of conscience could be fatal for the people they are supposed to protect.

(China Daily 03/15/2010 page29)