China’s Ministry of Health has issued an urgent notification to urge health administrations at various levels to investigate and ban poisonous rice nationwide.
Some factories in south China’s Guangdong Province were recently disclosed to produce fake name-brand rice by bleaching, polishing and adding mineral oil to moldy rice, which contains excessive aflatoxin B1 that could pose serious threat to consumers' health, according to the notification.
The ministry requested the health administrations to immediately rectify rice markets and crack down on crimes of illegally producing shoddy rice.
All units engaging in rice production and sale should be thoroughly checked, said the notification, demanding enterprises violating China’s Law on Food Hygiene or producing without licenses should be investigated and clamped down on, and those violating the criminal law be brought to justice.
The media should also play an active role in publicizing related laws, statutes and knowledge of food hygiene, so as to enhance enterprises’ law-abiding awareness and consumers’ ability to identify counterfeit goods.
(People's Daily 08/03/2001)
