from Montgomery Advertiser:
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070526/BUSINESS/705260315/1003
Sparks continues battle against imports of banned Chinese catfish
By Rick Harmon
China appeared to go on the defensive Friday in response to rising concern about the safety of its food and drug exports, asking the United States to clarify its regulations on the use of antibiotics that Alabama officials found in Chinese catfish.
Alabama Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks continued on the offensive.
"I'm glad the message has gotten to them," he said during a telephone interview Friday afternoon. "We finally got a message to them that especially in Alabama that we are not going to tolerate them sending products in here that have been contaminated with chemicals that have been banned by the FDA."
In a notice on its Web site, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine -- China's main food safety regulator -- said it had contacted its American counterpart about the use of fluoroquinolones. In its statement, the quality inspection administration asked Washington to "deal with the problem in an objective, scientific and equitable way." It also warned that the U.S. should not violate World Trade Organization's rules, which give countries the right to ensure food safety for consumers but not to manipulate health standards to protect domestic producers.
Asked about whether his stand against Chinese catfish could be considered protectionism, Sparks said China should start examining their fish rather than his motives.
"I would have absolutely no leg to stand on if I didn't find illegal chemicals," he said. "What could I do, regardless of whether they want to call it protectionism or whatever, if the chemicals weren't there? But they are there. I have found them, and they may wish I'd go away now, but I'm not going away. That's just not going to happen.
"All I have to say to them is that the best way for them to get their products into Alabama is to stop using chemicals banned by the FDA."
Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana recently banned catfish from China after tests found traces of ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin, both in the fluoroquinolone family. The antibiotics are used to treat tuberculosis, pneumonia and other illnesses in people and prevent infections in animals.
Sparks believes Alabama is responsible and is proud of it.
"There is no doubt about it that Alabama has led the way on this," he said. "Was anyone even talking about it before we came out on it? Before that we were eating all sorts of things in our food that people didn't realize, and they were shipping products over here that said they were one thing, but once you took them out of the box they were another.
"I don't take a lot of pride in hammering anybody, but I take a lot of pride in protecting consumers."
Products made in China have been getting increased scrutiny around the world.
The FDA has stopped all imports of Chinese toothpaste to test for a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama, and warned consumers not to buy or eat imported fish from China labeled as monkfish because it might actually be pufferfish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin.
Dozens of people have died in Panama after taking medicine contaminated with a chemical traced to a Chinese company. China also was the source of the toxic chemical in pet food that has killed an unknown number dogs and cats in the United States. And China's former top drug regulator went on trial earlier this month accused of taking bribes to approve untested medicine, including an antibiotic that killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market.
"I don't want to see anyone lose an animal or anything like that, but it could have been worse," Sparks said. "It could have just as easily been someone's children. It could have been us. I take this sort of thing very seriously, and my department takes this sort of thing seriously.
"We have to find a way to make sure whether it is pet food or vitamins or food for human consumption that we are protected by making them live up to the same sort of standards that we are asking our farmers to live up to. We have about regulated our farmers out of business in this country, and yet we are going to sit back and let other people in other countries do it at a different standard and continue to ship it to our people to eat? I don't think so."
He hopes the FDA will set stricter standards and that more states will begin inspections. He said he knows what he plans to do.
"I am going to continue my inspections, continue my surveillance program," he said. "There is nothing that will bear on me any harder than to think that someone lost a child or a member of their family because of something I didn't do."
-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070526/BUSINESS/705260315/1003
Sparks continues battle against imports of banned Chinese catfish
By Rick Harmon
China appeared to go on the defensive Friday in response to rising concern about the safety of its food and drug exports, asking the United States to clarify its regulations on the use of antibiotics that Alabama officials found in Chinese catfish.
Alabama Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks continued on the offensive.
"I'm glad the message has gotten to them," he said during a telephone interview Friday afternoon. "We finally got a message to them that especially in Alabama that we are not going to tolerate them sending products in here that have been contaminated with chemicals that have been banned by the FDA."
In a notice on its Web site, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine -- China's main food safety regulator -- said it had contacted its American counterpart about the use of fluoroquinolones. In its statement, the quality inspection administration asked Washington to "deal with the problem in an objective, scientific and equitable way." It also warned that the U.S. should not violate World Trade Organization's rules, which give countries the right to ensure food safety for consumers but not to manipulate health standards to protect domestic producers.
Asked about whether his stand against Chinese catfish could be considered protectionism, Sparks said China should start examining their fish rather than his motives.
"I would have absolutely no leg to stand on if I didn't find illegal chemicals," he said. "What could I do, regardless of whether they want to call it protectionism or whatever, if the chemicals weren't there? But they are there. I have found them, and they may wish I'd go away now, but I'm not going away. That's just not going to happen.
"All I have to say to them is that the best way for them to get their products into Alabama is to stop using chemicals banned by the FDA."
Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana recently banned catfish from China after tests found traces of ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin, both in the fluoroquinolone family. The antibiotics are used to treat tuberculosis, pneumonia and other illnesses in people and prevent infections in animals.
Sparks believes Alabama is responsible and is proud of it.
"There is no doubt about it that Alabama has led the way on this," he said. "Was anyone even talking about it before we came out on it? Before that we were eating all sorts of things in our food that people didn't realize, and they were shipping products over here that said they were one thing, but once you took them out of the box they were another.
"I don't take a lot of pride in hammering anybody, but I take a lot of pride in protecting consumers."
Products made in China have been getting increased scrutiny around the world.
The FDA has stopped all imports of Chinese toothpaste to test for a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama, and warned consumers not to buy or eat imported fish from China labeled as monkfish because it might actually be pufferfish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin.
Dozens of people have died in Panama after taking medicine contaminated with a chemical traced to a Chinese company. China also was the source of the toxic chemical in pet food that has killed an unknown number dogs and cats in the United States. And China's former top drug regulator went on trial earlier this month accused of taking bribes to approve untested medicine, including an antibiotic that killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market.
"I don't want to see anyone lose an animal or anything like that, but it could have been worse," Sparks said. "It could have just as easily been someone's children. It could have been us. I take this sort of thing very seriously, and my department takes this sort of thing seriously.
"We have to find a way to make sure whether it is pet food or vitamins or food for human consumption that we are protected by making them live up to the same sort of standards that we are asking our farmers to live up to. We have about regulated our farmers out of business in this country, and yet we are going to sit back and let other people in other countries do it at a different standard and continue to ship it to our people to eat? I don't think so."
He hopes the FDA will set stricter standards and that more states will begin inspections. He said he knows what he plans to do.
"I am going to continue my inspections, continue my surveillance program," he said. "There is nothing that will bear on me any harder than to think that someone lost a child or a member of their family because of something I didn't do."
-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
