House Committee: Chinese Imports Are a "Clear and Present Danger"

Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Bart Stupak (D-MI) presented a report on the safety of Chinese imported food, entitled "Food From China: Can We Import Safely?" The report was the result of a two-week China trip in August by staffers that involved extensive interviews with Chinese officials as well as multinational business executives and reporters from major media outlets that work in China and Hong Kong.

The delegation also tried to report on Chinese toy imports in response to the recent wave of toy recalls involving Chinese-made toys. Attempts to inspect plants and speak with workers were denied by Mattel and one of their Hong Kong-based contractors, Early Light.

Dingell summed up the report in a press release from the Committee on Energy and Commerce: "These findings are first-hand confirmation that food from China presents a clear and present danger to Americans under the current conditions of import. The report makes it clear that significant responsibility rests with unscrupulous importers in this country and a regulatory system that has broken under the weight of the ever increasing imports." He went on to say that the Committee intends to provide the FDA with better resources to deal with "this public health threat."

Stupak went so far as to criticize the Administration and the FDA who "have refused to admit [that] our food import inspection system is broken and incapable of protecting American consumers from potentially deadly imports." He continued by pointing out that Japan tests and sample 15 times the number of shipments that the US currently does. Stupak said that the US should be able to do at least that increased number of inspections.