The Swill Is Gone
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THE milk was marketed as pure and wholesome, and it looked fine to the naked eye. How were the mothers to know they were poisoning their babies? They had paid good money for it on the open market. It would take thousands of sick children before lawmakers did anything to stop it.食品伙伴个性空间!j }Sk*|7O ? V
China in 2008? No, New York City in 1858. Missing from the coverage of the current Chinese baby formula poisoning, in which more than 53,000 babies have been sickened and at least four have died, is how often it has happened before.
+f8l3ydT/T#Gk5rH&D(a0The disaster unfolding now in China — and spreading inevitably to its trading partners — is eerily similar to the “swill milk” scandal that rumbled on in New York for several decades of the 19th century.食品伙伴个性空间6_3O8x mOv
In a city growing fast, but lacking refrigeration, it was hard to provide sufficient milk. Fresh milk was brought in from Westchester and Orange Counties, but not enough to meet demand. In 1853, it was found that 90,000 or so quarts of cow’s milk entered the city each day, but that number mysteriously increased to 120,000 quarts at the point of delivery.
)~ P Q*M RuK0Some of the increase was due to New York dairymen padding their milk with water, and then restoring its richness with flour — just like their latter-day Chinese counterparts, who increased the protein levels in watered-down milk by adding the noxious chemical melamine. But the greater part was swill milk, a filthy, bluish substance milked from cows tied up in crowded stables adjoining city distilleries and fed the hot alcoholic mash left from making whiskey. This too was doctored — with plaster of Paris to take away the blueness, starch and eggs to thicken it and molasses to give it the buttercup hue of honest Orange County milk. This newspaper attributed the deaths of up to 8,000 children a year to this vile fluid.
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tpX`ea"H S0In China, journalists have known of the poison milk for months, but weren’t allowed to spread the news because of the Olympics. Even worse, it has been only four years since China’s last baby formula scandal, when fraudsters in Anhui Province manufactured fake formula from sugar and starch, killing at least 13 babies. In the case of swill milk, the New York dairymen had been informed for decades that their milk was unsafe.
$i ^o"W^:hl,bJ0As early as 1842, a temperance crusader named Robert Hartley warned that city milk could be catastrophically tainted. Throughout the 1850s, newspapers published exposés of the distillery dairies and called for the city to close them. Some of the cows were so diseased from their alcoholic diet that their teeth rotted and their tails fell off. Their udders were frequently ulcerated, but they would be milked regardless.食品伙伴个性空间 ov
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Finally, in 1858, Tammany Hall sent Alderman Michael Tuomey to “investigate” a notorious swill milk dairy on West 16th Street. Tuomey sat down with the dairy owners and drank a glass or two of whiskey. He concluded that swill milk was just as good for children as ordinary milk, and anyone who refused to drink it simply had a “prejudice.”
)@'~Dy8MQ'Nq0Again, there are echoes with China. The Chinese government had exempted several of the nation’s biggest dairies from inspections, one of the reasons the scare was allowed to spread unchecked from baby formula to yogurt to the whole of the Chinese dairy industry and its exports. (The British candy maker Cadbury announced yesterday, for instance, that it had discovered melamine in some of its Chinese-made milk chocolates.) This isn’t just laissez-faire — it’s an approach to the food supply that is so deliberately hands off that it amounts to an invitation to swindling. Heads are rolling now, but too late for the sick babies.
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a-dA8bTO0The similarities between China today and New York 150 years ago shouldn’t come as a great surprise. Adulteration on such a scandalous scale occurs in societies with a toxic combination of characteristics: a fast-growing capitalist economy coupled with a government unable or unwilling to regulate the food supply. In such get-rich-quick societies, there is a huge temptation to tamper with food, particularly when margins are low. The rewards are instant, and it’s not always easy for consumers to detect the difference between the pure and the doctored — particularly with a substance like milk, which we have been taught to trust implicitly.
(otmb I~A!d0Such scandals are not bad luck. They are symptomatic of a deep failure of politics. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s hasty gestures — punishing the dairies, forcing the head of the food quality agency to resign — have done nothing to deal with the underlying regulatory vacuum.
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p/\nw+j1Z:qf0In the end, New York milk was cleaned up. It took stronger food laws, better policing, the advent of pasteurization and the passage of the Food and Drug Act in 1906, 50 years after the worst of swill milk. Above all, it took decades, not months or years. China faces many more food scandals — to add to recent alarms like pesticide-laced dumplings and lard made from sewage — before it reaches the point where its citizens can routinely trust what they eat.
F;lR'h7pQ#P^;b0The American food supply is still flawed, as this year’s panic over salmonella in produce showed. But it’s worth remembering that it has been far worse. China’s present is America’s past.食品伙伴个性空间5[H W? B?3u"D
Bee Wilson is the author of “Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud From Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee.”
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lanbo78
发布于2008-10-07 15:19:40
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用肉眼看上去，在市场上销售的牛奶都很好，会觉得它们纯净而健康。可是如果当母亲的给孩子买了带回家喂孩子时，她怎么会知道，她这是在给自己的孩子服毒？！虽然这是母亲们花钱在公开的市场上买回来的牛奶。在法律制定者采取行动来制止那些毒牛奶和奶制品在市面上销售以前，已经有数以千计的儿童因此患病了。这里说的是2008年发生在中国的事情？错了!是1858年发生在纽约市的往事。这次发生在中国的导致5.3多万名儿童患病，其中至少4名死亡的事，其实在以前也曾经发生过。 食品论坛，食品行业社区，关注食品安全、食品技术、食品质量、检测技术等}'R7v:}mw
y;r{^uR `4U4bC如今在中国各地暴露、并且不可避免地蔓延到了中国的贸易伙伴头上的这类灾难，竟然与早在19世纪中期在纽约市里发生的““潲水奶””丑闻极其相似，而那桩丑闻持续了几十年。 食品论坛;食品社区x1S&s@b;h
-s Vpde m"T#n当时，纽约的城市化快速发展，但缺少制冷设备，所以很难提供充足的牛奶满足市场需要。新鲜牛奶当时是在威切斯坦（Westchester）和橙县（Orange County）出产，但不足以满足旺盛的需求。据统计，在1853年，每天大概有大约9万品脱的牛奶从外面运到纽约市，但是这个数字在进到市场时却鬼使神差地增加到了12万品脱。(chinesenewsnet市场上牛奶的突然增加，有一部分原因是当时纽约奶场工人先在奶中添加水，然后加面粉来恢复牛奶的“浓度”，和今天的中国奶品生产者所作的一样－为了增加牛奶的蛋白质含量而添加有毒化学物质三聚氰胺。但是当年在纽约市场上牛奶的突然增加的更大一部分是“潲水牛奶”（swill milk），这是一种从奶牛中挤出的污浊的、浅蓝色状的物质，当时的奶农将养在城市的酒厂附近，然后将制造威士忌剩下的带有酒精成分的热乎乎的下脚料拿来喂牛，结果就出现了这种不干净的蓝色牛奶。
4}9E6og6\,NWg5M食品论坛;食品社区
a)GPd*H食品伙伴个性空间为了去除这种牛奶里面的蓝色物质，奶农就在牛奶里面加入熟石膏粉，同时加入淀粉和鸡蛋来增加牛奶的浓度，最后为了让牛奶的颜色看起来更像橙县产的牛奶，他们还在牛奶里加入深色的糖浆。当时的报纸披露说，因为这种无耻的做法而导致饮奶死亡的儿童，在一年里达到8000多名。 在中国，记者早在几个月前就已经知道了毒奶粉的事，但是因为奥运的原因不允许报道这一消息。更糟糕的是，这是几年来接连发生的事情，因为就在4年前，发生过安徽生产的奶粉就造成了至少13名婴儿死亡的丑闻。 2f#}F;tKV Z&D
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[3k"u)x食品论坛，食品行业社区，关注食品安全、食品技术、食品质量、检测技术等比较起来，当年发生在纽约的“潲水奶”事件被揭穿后，接下来的几十年里，外界一直认定纽约奶农生产的牛奶都是不安全的。
A WzI"z!N)R+nh F 食品论坛，食品行业社区，关注食品安全、食品技术、食品质量、检测技术等^(d W @ s5?{|
其实早在1842年，一个名为罗伯特－哈特利（Robert Hartley）的人就警告说，纽约市的牛奶有可能受到灾难性的污染。在整个19世纪的50年代，报纸都在报道那些在酒厂附近的奶场出了状况，并且要求政府关闭它们。因为，那些农场的一些奶牛因为长期食用含有酒精的饲料已经患有严重疾病，他们的牙齿和尾巴已经开始脱落，乳房也长时间腐烂，这些奶牛还是牙齿腐烂、尾巴下垂，奶牛乳房开始溃烂。但是尽管这样，没人理会，奶农还在继续从这些奶牛挤奶出售。 食品论坛;食品社区 u-`5G+O` d8j
2j |Lg}Aa食品论坛，食品行业社区，关注食品安全、食品技术、食品质量、检测技术等最后是到了1858年，坦曼尼协会(Tammany Hall，美国历史上操纵纽约市政的民主党执行委员会的俗称。－译者注）派了阿尔德曼－麦克－图米（Alderman Michael Tuomey）到曼哈顿的西16街调查那里的一家声名狼藉的炮制“潲水奶”的生产商。结果，图米到那里却与那位牛奶商坐在一起，喝了一两杯威士忌酒。然后做出的结论是，这些泔水牛奶跟普通牛奶并无二致，孩子喝了都有好处，那些拒绝喝的人，都是有偏见的。 6?4^p&vVR
1M,H*I:pC g$C食品论坛;食品社区同样的，这次中国也一样。中国政府过去对几家大型奶制品企业实行了免检制度，这就是为什么这次恐慌可以形成一个传播链条的原因之一，对毒牛奶的恐慌已经从婴儿奶粉到了奶制品，再到整个国家的奶制品工业，最后到产品所出口的国家。
2N0Za6{2A2L 食品论坛，食品行业社区，关注食品安全、食品技术、食品质量、检测技术等lK#NF qt;pEf
这已经不仅仅是一种自由放任政策，而是一种在食品供应管理上有意放松的行为，无异于放手让厂商造假。虽然政府现在开始说“不”了，但是对于那些已经患病的儿童来说为时已晚。食品论坛，食品行业社区，关注食品安全、食品技术、食品质量、检测技术等,BL6W a yP
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[ 本帖最后由 lanbo78 于 2008-11-11 11:52 编辑 ]
