Chinese consumers are negotiating an endless minefield when it comes to making dinner as problematic food keeps coming off shelves: parasite-infested snails, pork tainted with weight-loss steroids, and now duck eggs contaminated by cancer-causing dye.

"Red scare"

Panicked by a recent investigation that found Sudan-IV, a dye that causes cancer in mice and rabbits, supermarkets and food stores across the country are withdrawing duck eggs with reddish yolks.

Investigators found poultry farmers in north China's Hebei Province neighboring Beijing had mixed the dye into the feed because red yolks were believed to be more nutritious and expensive.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said Thursday the contaminated eggs were mainly sold in Beijing, but the panic has spread far beyond the Chinese capital.

The Republic of Korea announced on Tuesday it would investigate duck eggs imported from China, as about 20 brands of Chinese duck egg were sold there.

Hebei Province has seized 580 kilograms of suspicious eggs and 800 kilograms of contaminated feed. At least 5,100 ducks have been culled in Pingshan County, where the cancer-causing chemical was first detected.

In the wake of the scandal, an anonymous health expert escalated public anger on Wednesday with claims that the problematic eggs were carcinogenic "only if an adult eats 1,200 a day".

The Beijing Evening News refuted the claims as irresponsible the next day, saying the expert had deliberately ignored the likelihood of chronic poisoning. "Why doesn't he sit back and eat 1,200 eggs a day himself?" asked a commentary.

Farmers' woes

While consumers blame duck raisers for profiteering, many farmers feel they are victims, too.

"I was told the 'red drug' was high-tech product and could produce more nutritious eggs," said Wang Tingfang, a 52-year-old farmer in Pingshan County. His 1,000 ducks have been producing red-yolk eggs since early 2005.

Zhu Laiyong, a businessman from Baoding County whose red drug had contaminated at least 5,100 of the 25,000 ducks raised in Pingshan, later bought red-yolk eggs from the farmers for a higher price.

Farmers were paid 6 yuan for each kilo of red-yolk eggs, 40 cents or 7 percent higher than normal. "It was hard to resist the temptation," said Wang, who made 10,000 yuan (US$1,250) last year by selling eggs, the bulk of the family income.

Zhu disappeared after China's Central TV revealed the scandal early last week.

"We never knew these expensive eggs could be poisonous," Wang said. "We used to eat the cracked ones and cooked all the dead ducks -- which became red in the pot."

His neighbor, Jia Shugui, however, did not buy the red drug. "I felt it wouldn't be good to mix a drug in the feed."

A sample test found eggs produced by Jia's 750 ducks were free of the red dye, but Jia was sad two ducks were killed in the test. "They are worth at least 30 yuan (US$3.75) each."

Management loopholes

The scandal has revealed management loopholes, even though at least six government agencies are involved in food safety in China, said Zhang Yongjian, a food and drug safety specialist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

These include administrations of food and drug, quality supervision, public health, agriculture and commerce, he said.

"Together they cover the entire supply chain from the farm to the table, but a lack of communication and total isolation between these organizations leave vacuums in management," said Zhang. "So when a problem comes up, everyone says someone else is responsible."

China might refer to the United States' experience and make the food and drug administration the sole agency to monitor food safety, says He Jiguo, a food safety professor at the China Agricultural University.

He said earlier enactment of food safety law is also vital in China. "But we've got to be careful in the lawmaking process. For example, we should involve more neutral research bodies and ordinary citizens rather than industry groups."

Food is China's biggest industry with an annual output of 1.6 trillion yuan (US$200 billion).

Early this year, a posting spread by millions of Internet users mocked the daily struggle Chinese consumers were facing with inferior, and sometimes dangerous, food products.

It outlined a typical day of a Chinese man: "He gets up in the morning and brushes his teeth with cancerous toothpaste; feeds his son baby milk powder containing excessive amounts of iodine; pours himself a glass of milk he bought yesterday not knowing it was wrongly dated; eats a bun that is too white to be true and munches on pickles made at a stinking roadside ditch.

"He joins his peers at the nearest KFC outlet for a lunch of fried chicken containing the chemical Sudan I. Before he leaves his office at the end of the day, he calls home where his wife is preparing a dinner of chemically contaminated rice, pesticide-infested vegetables cooked with recycled oil, which he'll wash it down with beer containing formaldehyde."

(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2006)