Food safety issues

The Foodborne Disease Monitoring Network of the Ministry of Health will cover more than 30 provinces and cities across the country in 2007. Today, at a press conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of the Food Hygiene Law, Zhao Tonggang, Director of the Department of Law Enforcement and Supervision of the Ministry of Health, pointed out that there are five major problems in food safety in my country. ,mainly include:

Microbial contamination is still the most important factor affecting food hygiene and safety in my country. Microbial food poisoning causes the largest number of poisonings. Among the major food poisoning accidents reported nationwide in 2003 and 2004, the number of major microbial food poisoning cases and the number of people increased, accounting for 26% of the total number of cases and the total number of people in that year respectively. 43.8% and 34%, 58.1%. Data from my country's Food Contaminant Monitoring Network also show that the positive rates of detection of three common foodborne pathogens, Salmonella, enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, and Listeria monocytogenes, are increasing year by year.

The food chain from farm to table is seriously polluted. First, source pollution (planting and breeding processes) is a serious problem, mainly caused by the abuse and residue of pesticides, veterinary drugs (antibiotics, hormones) and prohibited feed additives, such as clenbuterol residue. Second, environmental pollutants have an impact on food hygiene. Heavy metal pollution and water pollution are becoming increasingly serious. Pollutants in the environment entering the human body through the food chain can easily cause health damage, such as dioxin problems.

The phenomenon of illegal production and processing of food by food companies cannot be ignored. On the one hand, a small number of lawless elements illegally use food additives and non-food raw materials to produce processed foods, adulterate and produce counterfeit products, which have a negative impact, such as the Fuyang milk powder incident and the "Sudan Red" incident. On the other hand, the overall quality of my country's existing food industry is still at a low level. Manual and home-based processing methods with poor hygiene assurance capabilities account for a considerable proportion of food processing. Some employees have not even received a health examination. Rural and urban The unlicensed and unlicensed production and processing of food in the joint area has been repeatedly banned, causing major hidden dangers to food safety.

The application of new food technologies and new resources brings new food safety risks. With the rapid development of the food industry, a large number of new food resources, new varieties of food additives, new packaging materials, new processes, and new technologies such as modern biotechnology and enzyme preparations are constantly emerging, resulting in chemical substances that are directly used in food and indirectly in contact with food. Increasingly, it has become an issue that needs urgent attention and research.

New issues uncovered by food safety research. With the development of food safety technology, foods with traditional processing techniques are constantly being discovered to have safety hazards, such as acrylamide in fried starchy foods, aluminum residue in fried dough sticks and other safety issues, which have affected consumer confidence to a certain extent. .

Zhao Tonggang said that in response to these problems, the Ministry of Health will increase the management and supervision of food hygiene. According to the reporter’s understanding, my country began to build a national food contaminant monitoring network and foodborne disease monitoring network in 2000. After three years of efforts, monitoring points have expanded to 15 provinces across the country, covering more than 70% of my country’s major grain-producing areas. population. It is planned that by 2007, the monitoring network will cover more than 30 provinces and cities across the country.