- Jianan Yu/Reuters
Move aside, melamine. Cadmium-tainted rice might be China’s new scare of the season.
In a recent study, researchers from the Nanjing Agricultural University found 10 to 60 percent of the rice sold in markets in six regions contained cadmium, a heavy metal associated with high blood pressure, fluid accumulation in the lungs and a potentially fatal softening of the bones.
In some samples, the cadmium level was found to be equal to five times of the legal maximum, the researchers said.
A China Daily report on the discovery is careful to include caveats.
For one thing, the report says, the pollution is confined to a few, mostly southern, regions. For another, the samples were taken in 2007 and 2008, according to the findings, originally published in Century Weekly magazine.
China isn’t alone in facing problems with cadmium. McDonald’s Corp. in June last year had to recall 12 million glasses promoting the movie ‘Shrek’ after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said the glasses contained cadmium.
Cadmium in rice also isn’t a first. In 1912, farmers in Japan suffered from itai-itai, a bone-softening disease linked decades later to cadmium dumped by mining companies that tainted downstream rice fields.
Still, even the presence of small amounts of the metal in China’s rice supply could be problematic. Rice is a sensitive staple in China, both the world’s largest consumer and producer of the grain with an annual output of roughly 200 million tons a year. The government doesn’t allow much in the way of imports, though smuggling along China’s Vietnam border is said to be prevalent.
Moreover, Beijing is already struggling to contain politically troublesome food inflation. An added environmental scare could fan the flames of public angst–one potential reason China Daily, a state-run newspaper, is playing down the danger.
Cadmium was found in rice samples from only in three areas and the findings might be false, the paper said, quoting rice buyers who didn’t appear much daunted.
The government, according to the report, is commissioning more studies on pollution caused by heavy metals – but the results are expected to be published only next year.
-Chuin-Wei Yap
We need to be very careful about any food coming from China. Buy American!
@mediaspork – To win that bet, you’d better say a French company that has a manufacturing plant in the U.S.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=10822739
Chinese consumers should be very wary. I made a documentary about workers poisoned by cadmium while manufacturing nickel-cadmium batteries in China (www.reddustdocumentary.org), and it sounds like the improper disposal of cadmium inside the factories had a larger impact beyond poisoning the workers, but also poisoning the water and land around it.
@How about some Tuna
The level of mercury in tuna is not that problematic, and moreover even the Japanese don’t eat tuna like rice.
“China isn’t alone in facing problems with cadmium. McDonald’s Corp. in June last year had to recall 12 million glasses promoting the movie ‘Shrek’ after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said the glasses contained cadmium.”
Any bets on from where McDonald’s got the Cd tainted glasses?
@GM – No, this shows what a culture with no respect for human rights will do. Or, maybe China just needs more government?