USA, The High Cost of Eating Cheaper Or Getting Cheaper Products

Its sad when USA has to depend in another country to feed its citizens; however, its reprehensible that USA depends upon a country like China as this report reveals:

The United States is increasingly relying on other nations for its food supply, including communist China. China's food and agricultural injury has an absolutely appalling track record for safety and quality. But that hasn't inspired any American oversight or concern.

In fact, as Kitty Pilgrim reports, that track record could have a devastating impact on Americans.(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The United States is importing tons of food and food additives from China. Imports of Chinese food and agricultural products have soared 400 percent in the last 15 years. Nobody knows how much of it is safe.

MICHAEL DOYLE, CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY: In China, a lot of small farmers that use lots of antibiotics and pesticides that in some instances are not approved for use in the United States. So there's lots of possibilities where things can go wrong.

PILGRIM: The Chinese themselves suffer from contaminated food and water. The U.N. estimates 300 million Chinese every year suffer food poisoning. Sometimes, it's substandard sanitation, such as the 100 restaurant goers hospitalized after eating bad snails. Sometimes deliberate fraud. A Chinese company was caught making lard from sewage. Farmers were caught adding cancer-causing dye to duck feed to enhance the eggs. Pollution from industrial production or toxic accidents find their way into the water and subsequently into the food chain in China. Some of that food may be shipped to the United States. Almost all of it, untested and uninspected.

MICHAEL TAYLOR, FORMER FDA OFFICIAL: No amount of inspection is going to be sufficient if we don't have confidence in the conditions under which food is proud, wherever it's produced in the world.

PILGRIM: A look at the FDA violation code lists sanitary citations on imports from China. One entry reads, "A cosmetic product may have been prepared or packed under unsanitary conditions whereby it may have been contaminated with filth."A food import reads, "The article consists, in whole or in part, of a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, unfit for food."Or another, "The article appears to contain hepatitis A virus."

PILGRIM: A congressional hearing this week on the pet food poisoning revealed U.S. importers often don't test the products they import from China. And 99 percent of them go unscreened by the U.S. government and authorities until a consumer gets sick. No one is aware of the problem, Lou.

DOBBS: I just have to stay astonishing. The idea that the federal government continues to -- as our food imports now are rising to just about a little over 20 percent of our total food supply.The FDA doing almost nothing -- I think 1 percent would be almost nothing -- to inspect the safety of what people are consuming in this country. And there's a great -- you know, hullabaloo about pet food as there should be. But the idea no one is examining this issue.

PILGRIM: You know, to read down the list of what they caught is almost scarier, because 99 percent of it wasn't inspected. So you wonder what they didn't catch.

DOBBS: Exactly. And I'm certainly glad -- it's very reassuring after you point that out, Kitty. Thanks very much. Kitty Pilgrim. Somebody in Washington, wake up, please!


I am shocked and horrified about this report as anyone who have seen or read it. However, I am more shocked that our leaders aren't paying more attention. Can't they chew gum and walk at the same time?

Bush still running around for those phantom WMD in Iraq as he has to be RIGHT.

"Lou Dobbs concluded his remarks on this segment by pleading for 'somebody in Washington' to 'wake up!' But are they asleep in Washington? Are they so massively clueless and inept and useless that they really are not aware of these things? If so, then they have no business governing anyone or 'representing' us. If, however, they are aware of how things are done in China, and of the general prevalence of squalid Third World standards and lack of oversight, and yet they still avidly push importing more and more from China, then they are more than derelict; the obvious conclusion would be that they do not care about American citizens, about our health and our safety."

We have Walmart to thank for many companies going to China for products. Walmart wouldnt allow companies to supply the Walmart's stores unless the companies got costs under control. That control Walmart portends was for the compnaies to get supplies, products, merchandise from China.

Thanks Walmart for saving me a penny while allowing China to kill me.

read more here http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html