‘Communist China is led by an evil regime that refuses to play by our rules, enforce U.S. safety and health standards.’
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) raised concerns over the potential risks associated with garlic and other food imported from communist China, saying that these products may not be safe for Americans’ consumption.
“Communist China is led by an evil regime that refuses to play by our rules, enforce U.S. safety and health standards, or have Americans’ best interests in mind. This unfortunate fact means that food and products from Communist China carry increased risks of being grown or produced in dangerous, low-quality conditions,” Mr. Scott wrote in a Dec. 19
letter to Greg Ferrara, president of the National Grocers Association, which represents more than 21,000 grocers across the country.
In particular, the senator urged U.S. grocers to pull China-made garlic off shelves because they were reportedly grown in unsanitary conditions.
Garlic imported into the U.S. markets is grown with “human feces and forms of raw human sewage” as fertilizer in China before being “bleached to make it appear whiter and cleaner to the eye and cover up the filthy conditions it was grown in,” Mr. Scott wrote, citing reports from “cooking blogs, home magazines, YouTube videos, and documentaries.”
His call comes as food oversight is under scrutiny following cases of
lead poisoning affecting dozens of children nationwide. U.S. health regulators have
said the cinnamon used in some popular brands of applesauce pouches that were recently recalled is the “likely source” of the lead but noted that the investigation is ongoing. Mr. Scott has
demanded that federal regulators investigate the source of the cinnamon added to the recalled pouches and determine whether the cinnamon was purchased from China.
The Republican senator said he'll introduce a bill to “prevent the importation of any products made in Communist China unless the federal government can certify the conditions and processes in which these products are grown or manufactured meet U.S. standards, laws, and trade practices.”
National Security
It isn’t the first time that Mr. Scott has sounded the alarm over food imports from China. The congressman wrote a
letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo earlier this month, seeking to invoke a law known as the Trade Expansion Act, which allows the Commerce Department to open an investigation to “ascertain the effect of specific imports on the national security of the United States.”
“Food safety and security is an existential emergency that poses grave threats to our national security, public health, and economic prosperity,” Mr. Scott wrote.
The senator urged the Commerce Department to probe the food safety of garlic grown in China, adding that he has introducing bills to address the “growth practices and safety of garlic produced in China for human consumption.”
Mr. Scott’s letter drew the ire of Beijing. China’s hawkish state-run media Global Times, in an
editorial published on Dec. 11, called Mr. Scott’s request for investigation “clearly absurd.”
‘Harmful Chinese Products’
The safety of food imported from China has been controversial for several years. The issue first gained broad attention in 2007, when pet food ingredients from China were
found to have reportedly killed
hundreds of dogs and cats in the United States, leading to one of the
largest recalls of pet food in U.S. history.
As imports from China soared in the past decade, Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League, called for greater transparency on the origin of food sold in the U.S. market, saying that food sourced from China is “of special concern.”
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) routinely issues import alerts for dozens of potentially harmful Chinese products—including canned and packaged foods,” she wrote in an
op-ed published in The Hill in October. “But even when the system is working, suspect Chinese imports can still end up on store shelves.”
Ms. Greenberg cited a series of Chinese import recalls over the past decades. In July 2022, smoked clams canned in China were
recalled after sampling by the FDA found unsafe levels of “forever chemicals.”
Earlier this year, certain specialty mushrooms imported from China were recalled over the possibility that they were contaminated with listeria bacteria. Five Americans were confirmed to be
infected by listeria linked to the recalled mushrooms, according to the FDA. Health officials said the true number of infected people in the outbreak is likely higher, given that some who recovered without medical care may not have undergone testing for listeria.
