CHINA’S POOR food safety record was up for scrutiny again yesterday after vinegar tainted with antifreeze was blamed for the death of 11 people at a Ramadan meal in the restive western province of Xinjiang.
The poisoning is the latest example of contaminated food to hit consumer confidence in China. This year so far has seen pork used in dumplings that was so full of chemicals, it glowed in the dark, bean sprouts full of carcinogens and rice containing heavy metals.
Scores of people were made ill after consuming the vinegar, and a six-year-old child was among those who died during the end-of-day meal, attended by Muslims from the Turkic Uighur people who make up the majority of the population in Xinjiang.
Of the 120 made sick by the poisoning, one remained in a critical condition in hospital, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua said an “initial probe shows that villagers ate vinegar from two plastic barrels which were used to contain antifreeze, before feeling sick.” The cause had yet to be officially confirmed.
The mass contamination took place in Sangzhu village, near Hotan, in Xinjiang, a province where recent weeks have seen revived ethnic tensions between the Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese. Two knife attacks, as well as clashes between Uighurs and police, killed more than 30 people in the resource-rich and strategically vital province, which borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and a number of Central Asian states.
The fact that the mass food poisoning took place in a politically sensitive area like Xinjiang may explain why many online reports were taken down over the course of the day to preserve order.
This year, there have also been problems with contaminated red wine, bleached mushrooms, fake tofu and recycled cooking oil.
The government is cracking down and said it would give rewards to people who report on food safety issues.
Earlier this month, Chinese authorities arrested 2,000 suspects and shut down more than 4,900 businesses as part of a national campaign to crack down on illegal additives in food, after a raft of food safety scares.
The problem of food contamination has proven difficult to resolve. In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 fell ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial compound added to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high results in protein tests.
Last month a Chinese court handed down long sentences, including a suspended death penalty, to five people involved in producing and selling tainted pork.