U.S. Health Officials Talk Food Safety in Beijing

After a series of health scares from Chinese-made products, U.S. Health Officials are in China to address food safety issues.
The United States has a new strategy to ensure safety of food imported from other countries.

Health and Human Services Secretary, Mike Leavitt and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach arrived in Beijing on November 17.

Leavitt said all the food exported to the United States must be certified to meet its standards either by the authorities or by independent testers.

[Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services Secretary]:
"But if you are going to come to our markets, if you are going to have access to our consumers, you need to meet the safety and quality standards that we put forward. To do that you need to demonstrate that someone we trust and have them certified, when they come to our border they are certified, we will let them through, if they are not, you can count on heightened scrutiny. That is our new strategy."

The United States issued an import alert for Chinese-made food products last week, calling for foods to be stopped at the border that are not certified.

The two U.S. officials will also open new FDA offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. More FDA offices are planned worldwide to improve global food safety.

[Andrew von Eschenbach, FDA Commission]:
"So we are looking forward to a sharing of resources, a way of leveraging resources. That will benefit not only our two countries, but as we have other international partners engaged, that we really will create a worldwide network that will essentially improve systems in all countries."

The FDA offices are designed to start inspections of Chinese products before they arrive in the United States.

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[stephensamperi]

thats like going to hell and telling everyone to turn on the A/C