Commentary: Don't push food inspection responsibilities to "third parties"

The business club reported on September 8th that some of the official testing agencies' buttocks were sitting on the thighs of the manufacturing companies and did not become truly "third parties." But this is obviously not a reason to build a third-party organization, but to strengthen the relevant Reasons for the accountability and punishment of the testing organization. It is hard to imagine that without a necessary disciplinary mechanism, a third-party food inspection agency built on the other side will be able to maintain its neutrality. It will not be swayed by the authorities and it will not be swayed by the problem companies.

The incident of excessive carcinogens in Jinhao Tea Oil once again ignited the public’s anger in “reporting”. In China, food safety inspection agencies are affiliated with the government. The inspection agencies take care of local issues. These days, in order to eliminate this problem, the relevant state agencies are actively promoting the establishment of third-party food safety testing agencies. Experts believe that the third party food safety inspection agency must maintain its neutrality and not be affected by government agencies and other organizations or individuals, and issue food safety inspection results that are recognized by the government and society. (Integrated "Beijing News" on September 4 and "Chengdu Commercial News" on September 5)

The government is neither a food producer nor a strict consumer. If manufacturers and consumers are the first and second parties, then the government is originally a third party. The relevant government departments are holding the public’s health in one hand and holding the interests of the enterprise in one hand. They should be neutral and stand on an objective and fair position. Conduct food safety testing and supervision. Whether certain food safety or not, on the one hand, production companies self-test, on the other hand, consumers use the body to “test”, when the two test results are inconsistent, the official testing agency should take the authority test results as a third party. Let the corporate identity, but also allow consumers to agree. In this case, why should we set up a third party outside of the official testing agency?

Indeed, the ass of some official testing agencies are sitting on the thighs of manufacturing companies and have not become truly “third parties”. However, this is obviously not the reason for establishing third-party institutions. It is to strengthen the accountability and punishment of relevant testing organizations. The reason. Don’t you see, how many so-called third-party agencies are currently engaged in doing business in the name of neutrality in pursuit of favoritism? It is hard to imagine that without a necessary disciplinary mechanism, a third-party food inspection agency built on the other side will be able to maintain its neutrality. It will not be swayed by the authorities and it will not be swayed by the problem companies. There is no lesson in this regard. For example, hospitals and patients as parties involved in the medical accident should have been duly arraigned by a third-party health administrative department. Given the ass of many health administrative departments sitting on the side of the hospital, they A medical accident appraisal committee was established one after another in order to act as a neutral third-party mediation dispute. The results of it? Some butchers of the Medical Accident Appraisal Committee often sit down and their results are still not trusted. How to do? Is it no longer a fourth party accreditation body?

Obviously, for food safety testing, the crux of the matter is not the lack of third-party institutions, but that the official testing organization as a third party is not neutral, objective, and unfair. The "medicine" under the symptomatic approach should be to strengthen accountability and punishment. As the case of defamation and defamation in the case of the Jin Hao tea oil incident, it should be subject to heavy penalties. However, so far we have not seen the relevant parties initiate accountability procedures. In fact, the Jin Hao Tea Oil incident also made us realize that even if the inspection agency detected a problem, if the relevant government department blocked the news or issued false news, the testing organization would be objective and fair.

It is hard to imagine how even if some official food inspection agencies lose their credibility, how can private third parties be objective and fair and win trust? Food safety is an unshirkable responsibility of the government. It cannot be because some official testing agencies fail this responsibility and simply push this responsibility to the private sector. Yes, in the United States and the European Union and other developed countries, there are private third-party food inspection agencies. However, this is only because there are few official inspection agencies in these countries. In contrast, China has nearly 7,000 technical institutions with food-related detection capabilities. Employees amounted to 150,400. With such a large and bloated official testing organization, it is costly, but it cannot take responsibility for food safety inspections, and it also pushes food safety inspections to “third parties”. Is it not a joke? Moreover, how can non-governmental organizations in the United States and other countries be developed, how powerful is the self-government of civil society, and how public institutions can have credibility, is it what we can match?