Chain reaction caused by global food safety problems

Recently, food safety has become the focus of global attention: after the nuclear leakage accident in Japan, radioactive substances in exported food have exceeded the standard for many times; the haemorrhagic E.coli incident in Germany has affected many countries, causing more than 30 deaths and more than 3000 diseases; the plasticizer incident in Taiwan involved nearly 300 enterprises, 7000 kinds of food off the shelf, and the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries have also been affected; the United States According to a study released on June 7 by the National Center for Disease Control and prevention, about 50 million people in the United States get sick every year because they eat contaminated food, which is equivalent to about one in six Americans suffering from contaminated food The concentrated outbreak of these events, to a certain extent, triggered a global panic on food safety, especially in developed countries and regions, and also seriously undermined the local people's confidence in food safety The frequent occurrence of global food safety problems has not only become the focus of news media, but also brought chain reaction to various countries One is the difficulty of monitoring Economic globalization has accelerated the division of labor, and the distribution of food supply chain is more extensive Once food safety incidents occur, it is difficult to check and deal with them in time and effectively The United States imports food from about 150 countries, but only less than 1% of the imported food can be detected; it took nearly a month for the German hemorrhagic E.coli incident to confirm the source of infection In addition, new food additives and chemicals emerge in an endless stream, and it is difficult for countries to issue new regulatory provisions to regulate them in time According to the data, more than 100000 kinds of chemicals can be purchased on the market in Taiwan, but only 271 of them are classified as toxic A large number of other chemicals may enter the food production and circulation links, which is very easy to bring food safety risks The second is to aggravate economic difficulties The food safety crisis has made the economy of some countries worse Japan expects the downward trend of food exports to continue for several months; Spain has lost 225 million euros a week due to the mistaken identification of cucumbers as the source of infection; Germany, the Netherlands and other countries have unsalable vegetables, causing heavy losses to farmers Third, trade frictions After Japan's nuclear accident, the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries have suspended the import of some Japanese food, and other countries have also strengthened the monitoring of Japanese food radioactive substances Fourth, it affects state relations The European Union accused Russia of violating WTO rules by banning EU vegetables, while Russia asked the EU to reconsider the food circulation supervision mechanism; Germany and Spain fought a big water battle for the "cucumber incident", Spain also claimed economic compensation to Germany, and said that it may sue the German Hamburg authorities that identified cucumber as the source of infection Fifth, people's psychology is more fragile The food safety problem has aggravated the panic psychology of the people of all countries Some media even throw out the theory of "agricultural terrorism", which makes the people become frightened birds.