New Zealand consumers should be wary of Chinese products after companies putting cheap and toxic alternatives in food lead to a spate of pet deaths in the United States, and hundreds of people in Panama died from using a toxic cough syrup.
These products were deliberately adulterated to increase profits.
The pet food scandal has instigated the largest pet food recall in the U.S and health authorities in Haiti, Panama, Canada and Australia were forced to recall the Chinese toothpaste after it was found to contain high levels of the chemical, diethylene glycol.
Around 20 percent of the food consumed in New Zealand is imported and China is New Zealand's second biggest trading partner in imports, totaling 12 percent of our imports or $4.9 billion dollars worth of products.
The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) monitors our domestic food requirements, including imports.
NZFSA Director of Policy Carol Inkster said regulations regarding food safety are now under review and new ones should be in place by next June.
At present NZFSA have a system that lists high risk products, which are identified at customs and then tested.
"Our intentions are to move the checks back to the country of origin. This way we are not reacting here, but making sure it's safe on arrival," Inkster said.
"In the new system manufacturers will have a duty of care responsibility, "said Inkster.
This will means that food safety is now a commercial decision. With no mandatory country of origin labeling food producers will be responsible for keeping track of those details.
"If there is a problem we will recall what ever is necessary to keep New Zealanders safe, " Inkster said.
Dr Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization (WHO) China Representative was in Dalian, China, to address a food conference last week.
He said, "a number of recent incidents have raised the profile of food safety in China even further. We are all aware how a series of pet deaths in the United States recently revealed the presence of melamine in ingredients used in pet foods."
Health watchdog, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is struggling to contain the amount of faulty and shoddy products entering the U.S. from China.
Last month 257 products were stopped at the border for failing to meet the required standards. But more are slipping through.
The latest recall is falsely labeled Monk fish. This could possibly be puffer fish, containing a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin.
The FDA is confident that melamine hasn't entered the human food chain though. Thousands of pigs, chickens and fish that were fed the contaminated feed were initially quarantined pending tests to show they were safe.
The wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate from China was mislabeled and was really wheat flour contaminated with melamine and melamine-related products.
David Acheson, M.D., from the Office of the Commissioner at the FDA, said that investigators believe that melamine, which is high in nitrogen, was added to the wheat flour.
"As a result, protein level test results on the flour were consistent with those of wheat gluten," he said.
U.S companies responsible for importing and distributing the melamine laced product said the Chinese supplier deliberately mislead them.
Menu Foods President Paul Henderson and ChemNutra Chief Executive Officer Steve Miller were in front of a Congressional hearing to explain.
"For a seller who knows how industry testing methods work, this would allow them to cheat the buyers," Henderson said.
In a statement released on their website CEO Steve Miller said, "Moreover, here at ChemNutra, we are concerned that we may have been the victim of deliberate and mercenary contamination for the purpose of making the wheat gluten we purchased appear to have a higher protein content than it did, because melamine causes a false high result on protein tests."
Statistics from the FDA website show up to 2000 cats and even more dogs have died taking the pet food.
Vets believe another chemical called cyanuric acid in the feed, along with the melamine is responsible for renal failure of the animals.
Chinese communist authorities reported that the two companies managed to evade quality check-ups by labeling them as exports which are not subject to quality inspections.
"The two company's illegally added melamine to the wheat gluten and rice protein in a bid to meet the contractual demand for the amount of protein in the products," said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
Also disturbing is the recent deaths in Panama from the chemical diethylene glycol.
The New York Times ran an article exposing how it was falsely exported from China as the safe product, glycerin.
This resulted in the deaths last year of at least a hundred people when Government Health officials used it in cough syrup. Now the same chemical has turned up in toothpaste in brands Excel and Mr Cool.
Hu Keyu, the manager at Goldcredit International in China, the company responsible for one of the brands said that most toothpaste makers in this region use diethylene glycol because it is considered a cheap substitute for glycerin.
"You know, if you're in the export market, the margins are small, so people use the substitute," he said. "Even one percent or half a percent price difference can matter to people here," Hu told the New York Times.
Other incidents involving corrupt practices by food producers in the communist regime is the use of carcinogenic red Sudan dyes added to eggs to make them look fresher.
Trace amounts of the dye have been detected in rice dumplings at a Hong Kong restaurant recently.
Lipsticks from China containing these dyes were also found in the markets in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
In the 2007 Annual European Food Safety Authority Report released by the European Commission 924 items in the market were listed as dangerous products. Of these 440 were from China.
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