Posted on 07/13/2007 4:48:21 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
NANNING, China -- For nearly two decades, Lai Mandai regularly ate and sold beans, cabbage and watermelons grown on a plot of land a short walk from a lead smelting plant in her village.
Like dozens of other villagers who ate locally grown food, Ms. Lai, 39 years old, developed health problems. "When I did work, planting vegetables or cleaning the floor, I felt so tired, and my fingers felt numb," Ms. Lai says. "I talked with other villagers. They had the same problems."
Ms. Lai, along with 57 other villagers, was eventually diagnosed with high levels of cadmium, a heavy metal that can cause kidney disease and softening of the bones. Runoff from the factory -- which the government tore down in 2004 -- had contaminated the farmland and entered the food supply. A Chinese government report found that rice grown in the village contained 20 times the permitted level of cadmium.
......Yet after decades of industrial pollution, some of the worst contaminants making their way into the country's food come from the soil in which it is grown. So far it hasn't been determined the extent to which tainted crops such as rice, fruits and vegetables have been exported to the U.S. What is clear is that in contaminated areas dotting the country, residents have been eating such food for years or decades.
Pingyang, where Ms. Lai lives, is among the so-called hot spots in China where farmland lying in the shadow of factory smokestacks or mining operations has been contaminated by heavy metals. These elements can cause a sweeping range of health problems, from brain damage to cancer.......
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
At least it looks like the chi-coms are poisoning themselves worse than they are us.
Gonna enforce that “one child” policy one way or another.
What next? I don’t subscribe, so I can’t read the rest of the article, but if it’s in the rice, they must be poisoning the whole world. And how about tea, or a thousand other food products that come from China?
Maybe the FDA had better get its act together, fast. How long have we all been eating poisons, industrial chemicals, and traces of heavy metals in our food?
Try the Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Metallica-O’s
I don’t think much rice is exported. Isn’t it too bulky relative to its value?
I believe most of the heavy grains that store well are usually grown near where they are consumed.
Soon, plaintiffs attorneys are going to look upon firms that use chinese food ingredients like they look at firms that used to install asbestos insulation.
That’s right, who cares about safety, or quality or any sort of standards, just as long as they can import duty free that’s all that matters.
“Free Trade” is the largest scam on the planet, it is returning the industrialized world to the 1800s.
FYI : Louisiana will have a record corn crop this year,,,
I think I heard 175,000,000 bushels,,,30-40 mil. bu. over
storage capacity?,,,many of these farmers planted 1-2 hundred acres extra by having to cut-back on soybean/etc.
“Allotments”...JMHO,,,We need to let these small farms
produce more,,,seems to me these “Allotments” need to be
“Fixed”...
You will be surprised to know that the U.S. is the second largest importer of Chinese cement! I saw Chinese rice in the market two days ago.
http://www1.cei.gov.cn/ce/doc/cenh/200504192613.htm
I called the toll free # shown on the package of Uncle Ben’s Rice and the woman who answered said all their Rice is grown and packaged in the United States.
(disclaimer: I have no connection to this rice company other than to purchase a package of rice from time to time.)
I like the phrase “free trade”. Different people have different definitions, though.
For me, free trade only occurs in the absence of fraud.
Some products from China involve fraud. They don’t belong in the free trade category.
Anytime you allow OPEN imports from a 3rd world nation freely and in large quantities, you are guaranteed FRAUD every time. This isn’t something new or isolated.
China is a 3rd world nation, it can’t even feed its people! To think that hey, we’ll let you trade openly with us would wind up with anything less than what you are now seeing is dillusional.
“Soon, plaintiffs attorneys are going to look upon firms that use chinese food ingredients like they look at firms that used to install asbestos insulation.”
And if I were on that jury, the distributors of all this poisoned Chinese junk would be held totally liable. They have no business stuffing our stores with tainted and dangerous merchandise when our own manufacturers have to obey a plethora of government safety regulations. These purveyors of disease and death deserve to be sued into oblivion. The cost of Chinese products wouldn’t be so cheap if Walmart and every other distributor had to pay liability insurance on every Chinese item that they sell.
Wonder how many American farmers are using ‘biosolids’ on their crops?
Yes, the Asians grow most of it and eat most of it. We produce little, and don’t even eat all of what we grow.
It’s Bush’s fault! It should also be the fault of man made global warming. China is planning to host the Summer Olympics in Beijing next year, and they are still having all sorts of problems with both pollution in general and with poisons in food products for both people and pets. Maybe Mitt Romney should go over there to do his best to help straighten things out while, at the same time, Duncan Hunter tries to win the ‘08 Presidency here in the U.S.
How long before people start avoiding Chinese restaurants?
Polonium anyone?
I haven’t been in one since I came back from Nam.
I did the same thing with Carolina rice. The woman said that the rice is grown locally in the US. Hope she wasn’t lying.
That’s what makes it so strange that any rice at all is imported,,,(posted up thread),,,
Bump Dat...;0)
• Approximately 88 percent of the rice consumed in the United States is grown in the United States.
• The major rice-producing states are: Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Missouri.
• The U.S. has been growing and exporting rice in what is now the United States for over 300 years.
• The United States is one of the largest exporters of rice, supplying more than 13 percent of the rice that enters world trade. This figure reflects the fact that most of the rice producing countries consume all or most of their production at home, and very little of it enters international trade.
• Nearly half of the U.S. rice crop is exported to over 100 countries.
• Rice is one of the United States’ oldest agribusinesses, dating back to 1685.
More here:
http://www.usarice.com/about/production.html
Not even close. Too many instances of fraud will cause a decline in imports from the 3rd world exporter. Exporters who want to stay in business will only export honestly described products.
To return to my defense of "free trade": free trade has no fraud involved - by definition.
I’ve given up on any Chinese buffets; I still am ok with a regular Chinese restaurant.
Not all rice in the U.S. is imported. We grow a fair amount here in California. That said, the number of different kinds of rice from China and India in their supermarkets is intimidating.
More than you would like to know. The products of such activities are suppose to be feed to animals but.....
Hey Lu,,,TANKS for the link,,,this makes less sense
every post...:0/...
There are over a billion of them. I’m sure the government is not worried about a few million dying from pollution.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865686/posts
Veggie Booty Maker Blames Chinese Made Seasoning for Salmonella Outbreak
NewsInferno.com ^ | July 12th, 2007 | NewsInferno.com
Made In China = Poison.
thanks for the pings!
It was Chinese Wheat Gluten that made the pet foods poisonous.
Thanks! (and you are welcome)
Absolutely true.. sorry, when you open your imports to third world corrupt nations, it doesn’t take long for the fraud to start being exported, the money is too easy.
You are foolish if you think otherwise.
What is going on in China is absolutely predictable and is the guaranteed result EVERY time you open your trade blindly to third world nations.
China Industries International
Well, sure, but that applies in general to blind trading with unknown companies, from wherever, but especially countries with capricious speech liberties and corrupt governments, like China.
The problem comes not from free trade, but with its antithesis: fraud, a species of theft.
Even absent recourse in a proper court in China, though, the market will correct for these abuses, with customers balancing lower cost with increased risk and lower quality.
I wonder about lawsuits here in the US against the US retailers of fraudulent and poisonous Chinese products. I say sock it to them!
Ping.
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