Editorial: Crackdown is no comfort

Saturday, June 30, 2007 | 7:30 a.m.

A s toothpaste and automobile tires were added this week to the growing list of tainted items imported into the United States from China, Chinese authorities say they have cracked down on their country's food production operations.

According to a story by The New York Times on Wednesday, Chinese regulators say they have closed 180 food production plants after inspections revealed more than 23,000 food safety violations. The violations included a frightening array of food additives, such as hydrochloric acid, formaldehyde and other corrosive or toxic industrial chemicals.

Other inspections showed Chinese companies had been repackaging food waste and shipping it out as food. One plant had been repackaging two-year-old rice dumpling mix and marketing it as fresh, the Times reports.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has advised consumers to discard all toothpaste made in China after health officials discovered about 900,000 tubes imported from there contained a poison used in antifreeze. The toothpaste has been widely distributed in hospitals, juvenile detention centers and prisons in North Carolina and Georgia.

And on Monday the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration director criticized a New Jersey tire distributor who said his business, Foreign Tire Sales, was too small to afford a recall of 450,000 tires that came from a manufacturer in China. The tires are missing gum strips that hold the layers together, meaning they could separate. Two families are suing the New Jersey distributor because they say the faulty tires caused a van crash in which their family members died.

These revelations come two weeks after federal officials recalled 1.5 million Thomas & Friends toy train sets because a factory in China had coated them with lead paint. And likely few Americans soon will forget the massive pet food recall that occurred this year when a chemical commonly used in fertilizer found its way into the wheat gluten that was imported from China to make pet food. The tainted food sickened or killed thousands of pets.

The Chinese authorities' announcement that they have closed factories offers little comfort. Such closings have happened before - in 1997, Chinese factories were closed after investigations revealed that a toxic substance had been put into fever medicine that killed dozens of children in Haiti. Yet, obviously, other Chinese factories have continued to export contaminated goods - 60 percent of the items recalled in the United States each year come from China.

One response would be for American consumers to stop buying products from China and hurt these companies' bottom lines, getting that country's attention and, hopefully, forcing it to act responsibly.