Health, Safety and Environmental Protection -    
Should It Depend Only on Responsibility and Conscience?  

By Peter Zong   

Melamine tainted dairy products, sulfur bleached spices, boric acid added to dumplings, formaldehyde sodium sulfite in wheat flour, concentrated formaldehyde released from furniture - People know of chemicals through such terrible stories. After suffering from many casualties, China's authorities must be trying hard to find a way to protect the public and environment from harm caused by misuses of chemicals. Surely it is necessary to set up a special chemicals administration organization and legislate to manage uniformly chemicals and their preparations that may enter into the market.
   The melamine scandal, maybe the most shocking outbreak concerning chemicals in 2008, got calmed down along with the bankruptcy of Sanlu Group and a court's judgment against six dairy executives. Many reports show that some melamine makers sold the melamine residues to animal feed producers and milk powder manufacturers instead of treating these residues properly according to environmental protection requirements. No melamine producers that sold melamine to food makers were punished because China has no law forbidding such sales, which may have caused the public to feel anger toward those melamine makers. In order to calm the public, China's Industrial and Information Technology Ministry (MIIT) announced on January 7th, a draft of Melamine Production Permission Conditions for public comment. The officials of the ministry explained the trial draft is intended to manage strictly the production and sale of melamine, and controlling the source will help to prohibit adding melamine into any food for humans or animal feed.
   MIIT's draft and public ire made some chemical makers feel confused and treated unfairly. Melamine is a very common chemical, neither potent nor dangerous. What producers need to do is to reach the related quality standards. A production license for melamine is not reasonable because it is impossible to administer the licensing of thousands of common chemicals, one melamine producer commented. The real culprits in the milk scandal are those who added melamine to the milk, the related dairy makers, operators and cognizant insiders. Supervision of food safety needs to be enhanced therefore.
   So, here is the issue - should Heath, Safety and Environmental Protection depend on responsibility, or supervision or conscience?   

The management of chemicals needs to be improved and relevant legislation completed, not only relying on chemical makers' conscience, in the opinion of one Chinese HSE expert.

Recently nine authorities in the national government, including MIIT, the Ministry of Health, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine jointly organized a special action to crack down on adding illegal non edible substances and on misuse of food additives. On December 12th, 2008 the Ministry of Health announced the first black name sheet for seventeen kinds of non-edible goods that could be added to foods and ten kinds of food additives that are easily misused. On February 4th, 2009 the ministry announced four other non-edible substances.
   Twenty one chemicals have been identified as having been used in food illegally. The list includes formaldehyde sodium sulfite, melamine, boric acid, sodium thiocyanate, industrial formaldehyde, industrial grade caustic soda, sodium sulfide, industrial sulfur, industrial dyestuffs, carbon monoxide leather hydrated substances, potassium bromate, beta-lactamase, dimethyl fumarate and colorants Sudan, basic orange, rhodamine B, lead chrome green, auramine O and acid orange. According to a food safety expert, non-edible substances are very different from food additives. To ensure food safety, no substances, whether toxic or not, unless they pass official assessment, should be allowed to be added to food.  
   This policy is what the public wants. It accommodates pressure caused by the melamine scandal. Furthermore, what if non-edible chemicals are added to food only as additives? Are non-edible chemicals merely added in foodstuffs? Who can dare to guarantee that daily cosmetics, garments, furniture are absolutely free of chemical substances that are harmful to human or environment? These problems still make Chinese people worry and also help administrators recognize the necessity of the REACH rules issued by the EU.

"The regulations issued by authoritative ministries can guarantee food safety to a certain extent," commented by Qian Hongyuan, the Chief Engineer of CNCIC. "But short term and incomplete regulation cannot replace national law. It is necessary for China to legislate in managing uniformly the chemicals and their preparations that are to enter into the market, so that human's health and environment are really protected."

Now it is becoming a global trend to strengthen the supervision of chemicals. EU's REACH regulations have been in application, which not only supervise on the whole supply chain of chemicals entering the EU market but also lift consumers' rights to learn the truth - whether the goods they purchased contain dangerous substances or not. Similar regulations are launched in the United States, Japan and Korea.
    More and more economies start to pay close attention to the management of chemicals. There is no sign that China is starting a program of relevant legislation. Yes there have been many regulations by related ministries, but regulations are not equal to laws, having less binding force. Several different regulations issued by different administrations will inevitably allow repeated offences or have no effect at all. For instance, the State Administration of Work Safety is responsible only for the dangerous chemicals production and delivery, does not have right to supervise their usage; the Ministry of Health is charged with supervision of the use of foodstuffs and medicines, but the raw materials for making foodstuffs and medicines are assigned to other administrations or are unsupervised. In sum, chemicals that cover a wide range are managed by multiple administrations in accordance with different categories, without a uniform authority, making it impossible to cover the whole chain from production to consumption. China's existing supervision system has certainly brought about valid supervision in some sectors, forcing supervisors to take stopgap measures in handling urgent accidents - for instance, a problem occurs with milk, and then a standard setting the melamine content allowed in milk was born; formaldehyde in furniture caused injury, then the government issued a new coatings standard concerning formaldehyde. Solutions, standards, or regulations are always developed after disaster happens, and only used to suit for chemicals involved.   
    There are also possibilities for melamine to enter into other foodstuffs such as peanut brittle, eggs. Besides melamine, other chemicals that can hurt human health or environment can enter into foodstuffs or garments. Citizens really need complete, uniform legislation governing chemicals management, rather than companies' conscience only.  
   The other shortcoming for multi separated administrations is that the administrations will scramble to avoid responsibility when a new casualty happens related to chemicals that enter into markets. In China the Ministry of Environmental Protection is assigned to manage the registration of new chemical substances; the State Administration of Work Safety supervises dangerous chemicals; the Ministry of Public Security supervises the materials wi