By Krystal Pak
Recently in my Nutrition 300 class, the professor went over some food safety and some of the illnesses that can be resulted due to contamination, such as the food-borne illness. The food-borne illness is a disease cause by the ingestion of unsafe food (contaminated with toxins or infectious agents). It seems like the simple solution to this is to find what is specifically causing this contamination on produce and other food source through some lab research and prevent it by spreading the awareness of how to storage or prepare food properly, so that the people will be able to eat their food safely.
However, this was not a simple case for China. In fact, their food safety is getting worse to the point that this issue is starting to be seen more of a global health issue. According to an article, China’s food safety crisis: how serious is the problem?, "a 2011 study published in the Chinese Journal of Food Hygiene suggests that more than 94 million people become ill annually from bacterial food borne diseases alone, which led to approximately 3.4 million hospitalizations and more than 8,500 deaths." The number of death caused by the food contamination did not seem to decline, despite its history since the 1940's. This has been going on for several decades, so wouldn't the Chinese government know by know what actions must be taken in order to prevent this illness simply by developing a better maintenance method? Why is it that the number of death seem to go up instead? This is not just for the concern for the Chinese citizens, but also for other countries that are having items imported from China, which have a possibility of affecting other people outside of the country as well.
While asking some of these questions to myself, I remembered from the lecture that "to solve global health problems, you have to promote social. change. They're all tied as roots of problems." I began to figure out what exactly was going on in China, in a social aspect, and one of the arguments that were made about this crisis was that the market economy was growing much faster than the regulations made for the trades, meaning that profit came first before considering about the people that would be affected by the unchecked food sources. Also, the government did not seem to do much about this issue as well because they tried to cover this up by some incentives, in order maintain the social-political stability. This was definitely, according to Global Health Watch 3, "not merely a succession of unfortunate accidents, but also a broader systemic failure, and signal the need for a fundamental change in the nature of the global economy and of economics itself." I also got the impression that there weren't a lot of consumer movements in order to get their voices heard about these poor regulations, which may be why this food crisis has been persistent. There seems to be an unbalance of power between the government and the rights for the people to speak up when the policies are not working.
While asking some of these questions to myself, I remembered from the lecture that "to solve global health problems, you have to promote social. change. They're all tied as roots of problems." I began to figure out what exactly was going on in China, in a social aspect, and one of the arguments that were made about this crisis was that the market economy was growing much faster than the regulations made for the trades, meaning that profit came first before considering about the people that would be affected by the unchecked food sources. Also, the government did not seem to do much about this issue as well because they tried to cover this up by some incentives, in order maintain the social-political stability. This was definitely, according to Global Health Watch 3, "not merely a succession of unfortunate accidents, but also a broader systemic failure, and signal the need for a fundamental change in the nature of the global economy and of economics itself." I also got the impression that there weren't a lot of consumer movements in order to get their voices heard about these poor regulations, which may be why this food crisis has been persistent. There seems to be an unbalance of power between the government and the rights for the people to speak up when the policies are not working.
The picture below shows an example to this case. The two people with food are not comfortably enjoying their food because of the giants hand that seems to be constantly bothering them. The hand represents the government or the food production businesses that blocks them from having normal/uncontaminated food. Even while they are eating, they have to be in constant worry whether if it is okay for them to eat the food. The two people are also helpless in front of this hand, which ties in with the statement above that the people's voices aren't delivered well or aren't informed well about the purchases they make.
Overall, it stood out to me the most that we have to reexamine the history, background, especially social issues when trying to figure out why these global health concerns arise. Prior to coming into class, I thought that these health issues could be solved through just finding the cause of the health and not necessarily too much about the political or cultural influence. Medical anthropology is definitely not a separate category of anthropology, but rather a further continuation of the social issues that points to health issues.
image: http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/wp-content/uploads/china-food-safety-542x450.jpg
reading: Global Health Watch 3
lecture quote from 2nd Day of class
In your blog entry, you claimed that the reason behind China’s food crisis was three-fold. The first part of the problem was that the Chinese economy grew faster than regulations could be passed to control production. With that, the Chinese government has decided to hide the problem instead of fixing it, in order to maintain “social-political stability.” A lack of consumer movements by the Chinese people has exacerbated the food crisis. However, you did not put the blame on the public, since you “also got the impression that there weren't a lot of consumer movements in order to get their voices heard about these poor regulations, which may be why this food crisis has been persistent. There seems to be an unbalance of power between the government and the rights for the people to speak up when the policies are not working.” You have dug a deeper meaning behind the food crisis: the Chinese people cannot stand up against a government who has tight reins on a quickly burgeoning economy to protest the lack of regulations in the food industry. As you said, “I remembered from the lecture that ‘to solve global health problems, you have to promote social change. They're all tied as roots of problems.’”
ReplyDeleteI agree with your diagnosis about the food crisis in China. However, I feel that more evidence is needed in order to perpetuate the statements you have made. Have there been no documented complaints against the food industry in China? Are the Chinese people really as powerless as you paint them? Why does the power imbalance exist in China? I think it would have been interesting to tie the statements in your blog to the events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The Chinese people, mainly college students, dissented against the government in that situation, and were sorely punished. One hypothesis for a lack of movement on the part of the Chinese people may be a fear of violent reprisal. Even during the Tiananmen Square protests of the eighties, the protestors did not want to overthrow the Communist party or government: they merely wanted “serious reforms.” But the Chinese media is also controlled by the government, and major incidents like the 1989 protests would have been presented to the masses in a light favorable to the Communist Party. You also quoted Global Health Watch 3, claiming that a “broader systemic failure… signal[s] the need for a fundamental change in the nature of the global economy and of economics itself.” This statement seems to imply that the global economy is also at fault for the failures of the Chinese food industry. The United States’ high demand for Chinese products fueled the Chinese food industry. An elaboration on the effects of our relationship with Chinese food products would have shown how interconnected the global market has become, and how the relationship may have propelled the Chinese government to withhold regulations in the face of enormous profit. Although I agree with the ideas presented in your blog, I feel that your claims could have been supported with a deeper body of evidence.
Citations:
Smith, S.E. "What Was the Tiananmen Square Massacre?."Wise Geek. N.p., 13 Sep 2012. Web. 9 Oct. 2012. <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-was-the-tiananmen-square-massacre.html
This blog introduces the issue of food safety in the world, specifically in China. Many people die from food-borne illness and we have a solution to solve this crisis. However, social change is not an easy process and therefore deaths and illness continue to eat away at our world. I found this blog an interesting topic not only because I love food but also I myself took a class that focused on food that helped me relate to the author’s background information about it. My ANTH 469 class discussed about food politics and the material helped me connect with some of the solutions that could possibly change the lifestyles of others in regards to buying certain food products that was mentioned in the blog. The section that went over China’s crisis in food safety caught my attention because I actually did not know that so many in that country die from food contaminations. I choose to write about this specifically because I learned something new and food is so important that it needs to be addressed more often since some people take it so lightly.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with the statements made in the blog, especially where the author said “I also got the impression that there weren't a lot of consumer movements in order to get their voices heard about these poor regulations, which may be why this food crisis has been persistent”. China’s problem is that there are not enough social movements to promote this specific change in one of the biggest issues of the country. My reactions started to fire off one by one in my head by asking a series of questions. How will they achieve this goal then? Is money the issue? Or is it simply because not enough people care about it to come together and fight it? In addition to the lack of social movements, the government’s role in China has caught my interest. I have also thought of the same thing with the author’s question “This has been going on for several decades, so wouldn't the Chinese government know by know what actions must be taken in order to prevent this illness simply by developing a better maintenance method? “ The fact that the government was mentioned made me think that society is not the only one to blame. I recently began to think why everything in our world just does not seem to go in the right direction. Without blaming solely on the government, I blamed society. Sometimes this is the case, but the government is supposed to encourage the people and help rear them in the direction that will be of help to them. So why can they not make some sort of change to at least decrease the amount of deaths due to the food-borne illnesses? One thing that I do disagree with this blog is the picture’s relation to the topic’s issue. I thought that the author is saying that the government is not playing a big enough role in the people’s food consumption and safety. So why is there a huge hand representing the government right in front of the people’s faces? Besides that one part, I do agree with the fact that social change and culture has a big impact on solving issues like food in our world.
Food Safety Crisis
ReplyDeleteWith the advancement of technology and science in the twenty first century, we would expect that food safety crisis should be the last concerns on the list and we should be focusing on other issues like health concerns, economics crisis and etc. Food safety should be as simple as having strict regulations, policies and enforcement for make sure that all food being introduced to the general public should be safe and consumers should feel safe purchasing the products to feed their family on the daily basis. So why is that we are always worried about contamination, being food poison or having food-borne illness? Shouldn’t the modern technology help us move forward and provide safe produces for consumers? If only things were this simple, we wouldn’t have 31 known pathogens that area food borne agents and about 9.4 million estimated annual number of illnesses caused food borne.
I agree with your statement, “It seems like the simple solution to this is to find what is specifically causing this contamination on produce and other food source through some lab research and prevent it by spreading the awareness of how to storage or prepare food properly, so that the people will be able to eat their food safely,” it should be this simple but in reality, it isn’t. Your example of China’s food safety crisis is true. Their government should be more responsible for the produces their produced for consumers to purchases on a daily basis. They should have strict enforcement and regulation. They should be responsible for their action and develop a “better maintenance method.” But they are not. You are correct that their “market economy is growing much faster than the regulation made for trades,” this simple implies that they are investing more time to make money than to worry about people’s safety. Not only is China is one of the largest nation in the world but is also has the largest population in the world so they would focus more on the economic aspect than the safety of the people overall. Whether the food or produces are purchases among the Chinese themselves or exported out for trading purposes, their priority, to me, are to for trades (governmental relations) and economic factors so they would not care so much if the food or produces are actually safe or not for the people. With the size of the China and its population, it would make sense that China would have poor regulation and enforcement to prevent food contamination. It is true that there are an unbalance of power between the government and the people’s right to seek for food regulation and safety. Produces from China has a long history of high risk for consumers. Produces from China imported to the US also has a long history of items having to be recall off the shelves because the produces contained lead, contaminated, not safe for consumer usages. It is not only food that is a safety crisis but any produce from China is a safety issues. Food to clothing, to personal hygiene items to furniture, etc, are all have been a safety issues for consumers who choose to purchases it. Made in China produces are now considered to be extreme dangerous and have introduced serious health concerns to consumers.
Work Cited: http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/2011-foodborne-estimates.html
~Section AH