Since May, the people of the Republic of China (R.O.C.) have been gripped by a collective panic. The cause lies with the large food corporations we have trusted for so long; in their commonly used food additive, “clouding agents,” an industrial chemical additive known as “plasticizers” (DEHP) was detected.
The issue worth exploring behind this incident is why the government we rely on and the manufacturers we trust never once questioned their raw material suppliers over several decades. How could they so “complacently” use contaminated raw materials? While we often criticize the “tainted food” from Mainland China, it turns out we are not far behind.
The birth of any product requires a series of interconnected processes: proposal, planning, design, procurement, manufacturing, inspection, testing, and finally, distribution to the consumer. Our government establishes specific inspection standards based on international safety regulations to fit the so-called “local context.” Manufacturers then use these standards as a minimum threshold, aiming for maximum profit at the lowest cost. This inspection model has created a vicious cycle of symbiotic negligence across the nation.
Today, after a major flaw has been discovered in this cycle, the incompetence of the government and the greed of manufacturers have been laid bare. When these companies claim innocence in the media, it reminds me of tobacco companies claiming cigarettes don’t cause cancer—it is equally laughable.
In contrast, look at our inspection standards for medical devices. Any device classified as Level 2 or higher requires re-verification for even the slightest design change; furthermore, the factory audits for these developers are extremely rigorous.
Yet, we find that food and medical devices—both of which are “invasive” to the human body—are held to two vastly different sets of standards. Not to mention, when media reporters visited the factories of the raw material suppliers in this scandal, the environments they saw were more akin to “junkyards” than “factories.”
I hope our government can learn a lesson from this incident. Beyond establishing a complete production and manufacturing resume (traceability), they must regularly expand the scope of inspections and implement stricter audits across the upstream, midstream, and downstream supply chains. We must ensure that when the next serious incident occurs, we are not just left cleaning up the mess for these black-hearted merchants, but are instead able to punish them effectively.