Shake up on the cards for food and drug safety

A major shift

Yan Weixing, deputy director of the China Food Safety Risk Assessment Center and a CPPCC member, said the initiative is a major shift from the previous food safety control mechanism, whereby different responsibilities were handled by different government departments.

In 2004, the State Council issued the Decision on Further Strengthening Food Safety Supervision, which first recognized supervision by sections as a main method of food safety control.

Before that change, food safety was regulated by the ministries of health and agriculture.

The 2004 document divided the supervision of food safety into four areas jointly managed by the departments of agriculture, quality supervision and inspection, industry and commerce, and health.

The production of primary agricultural products was supervised by the agriculture department, the quality and daily hygiene supervision of food processing was overseen by the quality supervision and inspection department, and supervision of food circulation and distribution was the responsibility of the department of industry and commerce.

Yan said that many food safety experts disagreed with the 2004 changes. In the past decade, "problems such as overlapping responsibility or blind spots have arisen under the system", he pointed out.

Also, the supervisory responsibilities for some emerging food businesses are difficult to define clearly, he added.

A conflict of standards has also happened occasionally, said Chen Junshi, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a food safety expert.

For example, the plant daylily is categorized as a dry vegetable. The sulfur dioxide residue produced during the drying process is within limits set by the Ministry of Agriculture. However, the same level of residue is illegal under standards set by the Ministry of Health.