China suspends officials after pigs test positive for banned drug in new food safety scandal

By Associated Press, Friday, March 18, 8:22 AM

BEIJING — Three senior officials in central China have been suspended and more than two dozen others punished after pigs in farms there tested positive for a banned chemical that can be dangerous to humans, state media said Friday.

Tainted pork has become the latest food safety scandal to shock China after state broadcaster CCTV ran an expose earlier this week showing that several farms in Henan province were using the fat-burning drug, clenbuterol, in pig feed. A subsidiary of the country’s largest meat processor was one company pinpointed in the report.

The news prompted an investigation of some pig farms in Henan by provincial inspectors, which Xinhua News Agency said Friday had found that 52 out of about 1,500 pigs in nine farms tested positive for clenbuterol. More inspections are being planned, the report said.

The heads of three animal husbandry bureaus in the province were suspended, Xinhua said, while another 27 were in police custody, sacked or suspended.

The scare has spread to other parts of China. In the eastern city of Nanjing, 264 pigs believed to be from Henan were killed and buried after 20 pigs randomly picked from the group all tested positive for clenbuterol, Xinhua said. Also destroyed were another 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms) of pork at a market, it said.

The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Friday that authorities have taken measures to block clenbuterol-tainted pork from entering the market, in an apparent bid to ease anxieties in the world’s largest producer and consumer of the meat.

Shares of Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat processor, tumbled 10 percent Tuesday after CCTV broadcast the report that mentioned its subsidiary, Jiyuan Shuanghui. The company issued an apology on Wednesday, saying it had ordered the subsidiary to halt operations.

Clenbuterol, known in China simply as “lean meat powder,â€