China Rejects U.S. Food, Supplement Products

BEIJING—In early June Chinese officials returned food and dietary supplement shipments originating from the United States for failing to meet minimum safety standards. First, China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued a statement saying they had turned down three shipments of raisins and health supplements following inspections. They noted the products failed to meet the sanitary standards of China, adding that levels of bacteria and sulphurdioxide were too high. T h e rejected products were from K-Max Health Products Co., CMO Distribution Center of America Inc. and Supervalu International Division. Shortly after this rejection, China reported a shipment of pistachios from the United States was rejected because it contained rotting nuts infested with ants, which posed a threat to trees and the country’s ecology. They planned to destroy part of the shipment and returned the rest.

The Xinhua news agency in China reported officials have advised inspectors to pay special attention to shipments of U.S. health care products, poultry and pork, seafood and processed food oils. The move comes on the heels of an intense period of scrutiny by U.S. officials on products originating from China. In April, authorities turned back 257 Chinese food shipments, far more than from any other country. This followed the widely covered contamination problems with pet food ingredients, namely wheat-gluten, imported from China. Melamine, a toxic chemical used to make plastics, found in the wheat gluten is suspected in the rash of pet deaths reported this Spring and attributed to certain brands of pet food.

Suspicious of China’s intentions in the increased product rejections, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked for more information from China on these current cases, according to David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food protection at FDA. “Is it tit-for-tat? We don’t know and probably won’t ever know,” he told the Associated Press. “If they found a legitimate problem with a product exported from the United States, we would want to know about it so we can look into it and fix it.”