India's food safety crisis indicative of bureaucratic failures

FOOD safety is a serious public health concern in the world's two most populous countries, China and India. In both countries, the challenges of feeding a large, geographically dispersed population, millions of whom are poor and malnourished, are immense. This has led to the proliferation of illegal, dishonest, and bootleg suppliers and slipshod government policies. The results are detrimental to public health, particularly for vulnerable communities. Such crises further compromise international perceptions, indicating poor governance, weak political will, inadequate policies and lax enforcement.

The path to development is not exclusively about economic growth, jobs and infrastructure. Clear and consistent food regulatory policies and their implementation are both imperative for growth and the inherent responsibility of responsible and progressive governments.

In recent years, tainted milk products in China have led to child deaths, resulting in consumer backlash and a strengthened pledge by the government to address the safety of food sources. Other food safety episodes in China include the 2013 discovery of a crime ring marketing fake or tainted meat products, and an investigation of distillers charged with adding the virility drug Viagra to liquor products.