On the Washington Post’s PostGlobal site, Chinese journalist Wang Feng writes in support of international pressure as a means to help China clean up its act in food production:
The toothpaste saga is a textbook case of a public health and food safety crisis that wouldn’t have even raised eyebrows inside China, much less been addressed and resolved on a national level, if it hadn’t escalated into an international scandal. And the toothpaste issue is a relatively minor case in a string of serious crises that have continuously tarnished the “Made in China” label. Among those are the recent American pet food scare and the Panamanian cough syrup deaths (although I’ve never quite figured out why the deaths of 17 U.S. cats got so much more worldwide news coverage than the deaths of more than 100 Panamanians.) [Full text]
