Gelatin those things

At this year's "3•15 Party", CCTV once again exposed leather gelatin, pointing out that some enterprises in Fujian Province were suspected of producing unqualified gelatin, and these raw materials flowed to pharmaceutical companies and food enterprises, such as Yake Food, Jinguan Food, Crayon Xiaoxin and other food companies suspected of using garbage leather processing gelatin to make candy.

As soon as the report came out, the criticism of public opinion on the unscrupulousness of enterprises and inadequate supervision was incessant. Is this a counterattack of the "old leather shoes"? However, the sound of follow-up regulatory actions is very different and surprising.

For example, the Qingdao Municipal Food and Drug Bureau's inspection of Shuang whale Pharmaceutical found that the company has never purchased raw materials from Fujian Sanming Gum Industry for more than a year, and the raw materials in stock are also qualified. The investigation of the Fujian Provincial Food and Drug Administration also found that Yake, Crayon Xiaoxin and Jinguan did not use unqualified gelatin, and the products also met the requirements of national standards. The inspection of Sanming Glue may have found that some health norms were not well implemented, but it also did not find serious problems exposed by CCTV.

When there is a contradiction between the media and the regulatory authorities, the public often chooses to believe in the "exposé" media. However, under the dual pressure of public opinion and accountability, how can the regulatory authorities cheat in the investigation and give the enterprise a cover? Under the heavy blow, the so-called "illegal facts" were not found by digging three feet into the ground, and the authenticity, completeness and timeliness of the CCTV exposure content were questionable.

The production threshold of gelatin is relatively low, and small workshops can also work red-hot. Although individual illegal acts are difficult to prohibit, in recent years, the crackdown has increased, and the behavior of large enterprises has become more cautious, and the use of "blue alum skin" to produce edible gelatin should not be a common phenomenon. I don't deny the authenticity of the scene in the video, but is there any editing technique of Zhang Guan Li Dai and Flower Transfer? According to industry insiders, the scene of the "illegal enterprise" in the video, which does not know where the small workshop is, is imposed on the legitimate enterprise. In the news, some of the lines of Yao Longkun, secretary general of the gelatin association, are also completed in the form of voiceovers, which are not his own narrative at all, so that there is a claim that he is the "initiator".

Many netizens also questioned the motives of this program, such as why did they not report to the regulatory authorities in time when they knew that some enterprises were breaking the law? The content of the "315 party" is generally done in advance, if the regulatory authorities verify the problem, then before the program is broadcast, doesn't CCTV watch consumers eat those problem foods? For example, why didn't those expired food raw materials in Hangzhou be seized by the regulatory authorities earlier? Is the sensational effect of the show more important than the health of the consumer?

There is another rumor to be tested, in 2012 Zhao Pu's early revelation made "industrial gelatin into food" lose the explosiveness of the news, and later had to turn to medicinal capsules. However, the film made by the reporter undercover was reluctant to throw away, so this time he added some materials and repackaged it and broadcast it. The coincidence of this statement is that the exposed companies have a good regulatory record in the past 1 to 2 years. If this is true, then this revelation is really ridiculous.

These issues aside, media surveillance is an indispensable force. Many media exposures have indeed played a role in promoting and supplementing the government's food safety supervision, but it can also be seen that some media reports lack factual basis and create social panic for no reason. The ancients cloud, there is no change to nothing, but if the material is exposed every day, the real food safety problems do not have the energy to manage what to do?

Taking this gelatin exposure as an example, within just one week of CCTV exposure, the Fujian Food and Drug System alone dispatched 525 people, inspected food production enterprises 643 times, operated 25616 times, catering service units 12927 times, and inspected 32 drug production enterprises. Is this a huge waste of limited regulatory resources across the country, such as tickets and certificates, purchase inspections, sealed products, and sampling tests? If there is a real problem, it is good, the problem is that after checking the bottom, there is no problem.

Behind the long-standing problem of gelatin is the contradiction between the rapidly expanding market demand and the development of the industry, which may also be a common problem in the entire food industry. The law-abiding operation of enterprises, strict supervision by the government, and the rational choice of consumers are the fundamentals of maintaining a good market order, but individual interest-driven criminal acts will certainly still exist.

We expect the media's keen insight to penetrate the shady curtain of the law, and we expect the media's "targeted killing" operation to become an invisible blade for regulators, rather than a dancing baton.

(The author is a doctor and associate researcher, who has been engaged in food safety related work since 2000 and is now working in the Risk Exchange Department of the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center)