FDA opens inspection office in Beijing
Reporting from Beijing -- Amid recurring Chinese product safety scares, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday opened an inspection office in Beijing that officials stressed would help China's capacity to export safer products to America and the world.
The new FDA field office, one of three to be launched nationwide here, is the first outside the U.S. and comes during a nadir in U.S. consumer confidence in Chinese-made products following reports of counterfeit drugs, melamine-laced milk and toys covered in potentially-lethal lead paint.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told a gathering of Chinese product manufacturers here that the U.S. hopes to work with China as part of a global product safety strategy that would eventually involve opening similar inspection offices in India, South America, Europe and the Middle East.
"This is not about China and the U.S," Leavitt said. "This is about a response to a large shift in global trading patterns. We have to invent solutions to problems that didn't exist 15 years ago."
Some food safety experts, however, questioned the scope of foreign oversight in China, doubting whether factory owners would allow outsiders into their manufacturing plants.
China's public response to the new product inspection strategy was generally positive, with officials announcing that they planned to open their own product quality control office to the U.S.
A front-page story in the state-run China Daily quoted Health Minister Chen Zhu as saying the move to dispatch officials to America was based on the "principle of equality."
Leavitt said he had heard about China's plans to send product inspectors but said he didn't know what they would do. "They have indicated that to us," he said. "We will deal with that as it occurs."
China Daily's lead editorial on Wednesday stressed that food safety scares affect not just China, but the U.S. as well. "The recent cases of tainted food products in China have raised safety concerns in both countries," the editorial read.
"The U.S. authorities should try to better understand what is really happening in China and seek solutions through communication and coordination with their Chinese counterparts."
News of the FDA's new presence in China sparked Internet debate here, with reaction decidedly mixed. Some web-users said the move was an insult to the integrity of China's ability to police itself – but a boon to consumers.
