The crackdown on banned lean-meat additives, such as ractopamine and clenbuterol, which are harmful to humans but help pigs to grow more muscle and less fat, needs to be severe, as the chemical manufactures, pig growers, pork producers and those watchdogs who allow contaminated pork into the market need to know where to draw the line.

That explains why nine central government departments including the Ministry of Agriculture; the State Administration of Industry and Commerce; the Ministry of Health; and the Food Safety Office of the State Council, have jointly initiated a year-long action against the production, sale and use of harmful growth hormones found in pork.

Such substances were banned in 1997, and they would not have received so much attention from both the general public and the government had it not been for the exposure of a well-known brand of pork product whose meat has long been contaminated. What have our food safety watchdogs been doing? The existence of such harmful substances in the market, in pig feed and even on our dining tables, for such a long time constitutes a failure to carry out their duties.

Of course, this does not mean that those growth hormone producers, sellers and users are not to blame. They are the root cause of the problem. They know no limits when it comes to making a profit and they deserve severe penalties.

Yet, had a single one of the series of tests and checks that are in place really performed its duty as well as it should have, there would not have been so much room for such an illegal activity to flourish. That limited number of ractopamine and clenbuterol producers that have been uncovered by the food safety watchdogs and police points to the inadequacy of law enforcement in this regard and the impotency of the food safety watchdogs.

Quarantine workers should randomly test pigs even when they are being raised. Pigs should also be tested before they are butchered and the pork must be tested before it is sold on the market. Yet, it has been repeatedly reported that money can lubricate all these channels so that tainted pigs can go all the way from their pigsties to the table without being properly tested.

The mechanism to prevent this has failed and this is even more threatening and dangerous than the crimes themselves. For this is why such harmful chemicals can be used for such a long time without being eliminated.

So, this year-long crackdown should also target the watchdogs who fail to perform their duty.