Firm hand on watchdogs

The crackdown on banned lean-meat additives, such as ractopamine and clenbuterol, which are harmful to humans but help pigs to grow more muscle and less fat, needs to be severe, as the chemical manufactures, pig growers, pork producers and those watchdogs who allow contaminated pork into the market need to know where to draw the line.

That explains why nine central government departments including the Ministry of Agriculture; the State Administration of Industry and Commerce; the Ministry of Health; and the Food Safety Office of the State Council, have jointly initiated a year-long action against the production, sale and use of harmful growth hormones found in pork.

Such substances were banned in 1997, and they would not have received so much attention from both the general public and the government had it not been for the exposure of a well-known brand of pork product whose meat has long been contaminated. What have our food safety watchdogs been doing? The existence of such harmful substances in the market, in pig feed and even on our dining tables, for such a long time constitutes a failure to carry out their duties.