June 17
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - While the discovery of tainted imports from China has shocked Westerners, food safety has long been a problem in much of Asia, where enforcement is lax and food poisoning deaths are not unusual. Hot weather, lack of refrigeration and demand for cheap street food drives vendors and producers to find inexpensive - and often dangerous - ways to preserve their products.

But the food is hot, cheap and tasty - a combination that often overrides safety concerns in countries where many still live on $2 a day.

Formaldehyde, for instance, has long been used to lengthen the shelf life of rice noodles and tofu in some Asian countries, even though it can cause liver, nerve and kidney damage. The chemical, often used in embalming, was found a few years ago in seven of 10 pho noodle factories in Hanoi.

Borax, found in everything from detergent to Fiberglas, is also commonly used to preserve fish and meats in Indonesia and elsewhere. Farmers in various countries often spray produce with banned pesticides, such as DDT.

Wheat gluten tainted with the industrial chemical melamine has been blamed for killing or sickening thousands of dogs and cats in North America. Fish containing pufferfish toxins, drug-laced frozen eel and juice spiked with harmful dyes were among other unsafe products shipped to the U.S.

Diethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting thickening agent also used in antifreeze, has been blamed for the deaths of at least 51 people in Panama after the chemical was imported from China and mixed into cough syrup and other medicines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has halted all shipments of Chinese toothpaste to test for the same chemical reportedly found in tubes sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama.

China has faced outrage among its own citizens in recent years. Whiskey laced with methanol, a toxic wood alcohol, was blamed for killing at least 11 people in southern Guangzhou. Local media in Shanghai uncovered the sale of phony tofu made from gypsum, paint and starch.

At least a dozen Chinese babies died and more than 200 were sickened with symptoms associated with malnutrition after drinking infant formula made of sugar and starch with few nutrients. In another case, lard for human consumption was made with hog slop, sewage, pesticides and recycled industrial oil.

Some Vietnamese have been so shaken by news of tainted Chinese foods, they are changing their eating habits. They are avoiding Chinese-made products and paying more - up to $2 a bowl - for pho at an air-conditioned chain restaurant with signs promising no formaldehyde or borax.
go

Our food supply is getting crazy, We the consumer never know what is in our foods we obtain from anywhere including here in the states..everything seems to have some kind of additive, posion or somthing unsafe with it, the biggest part of our food is containmated .Kind of scary once you sit and think about it..makes one wonder what will happen with our food in the near future. wil there be any safe to consume.

This is really tragic to hear. I hope the situation can be stopped.

I,m beginning to look at everything and anything i put in my mouth with a lot more suspission these days! of course i don,t know what exactly i,m looking for? Who would of thought that eating or brushing your teeth would be like playing russian roulette?

That's why I have a garden. And I am seriously considering going vegetarian, not because of killing animals, but all the crap they pump the naimals with and then how they treat the meat before it is packaged. I grew up on a farm and we never gave our animals anything for medicine. If they died, they died, we didn't want all that gunk in our bodies. Bloody ridiculous.

Exactly! and they feed cows grain mixed with dead animal parts! cows are grazers not meat eaters ! no wonder they get mad cow disease!

I know!! Who was the genius who came up with that? They have been herbbavores for thousands of years and all of a sudden feed them meat? My God! I'm not a scientist, but even I can see that is absolutley insane to attempt. But, these are teh minds that are in control of the food supply.

mad cow is also linked to the feeding of the "droppings" of the cattle... cheap inexpensive way to feed the "beef".