The US imports most of its honey and for years China was the biggest supplier.
But in 1997, a contagious bacterial epidemic raced through hundreds of thousands of Chinese hives, infecting bee larvae and slashing the country’s honey production by two-thirds.
Chinese beekeepers had two choices: They could destroy infected hives or apply antibiotics. They chose to do the latter.
That was a mistake, said Michael Burkett, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University and an internationally known authority on bees and honey.
“You hear about people shooting themselves in the foot? Well, the Chinese honey-sellers shot themselves in the head,” he said.
The Chinese opted to use chloramphenicol, an inexpensive, broad-spectrum antibiotic that’s so toxic it’s used to treat only life-threatening infections in humans — and then only when other alternatives have been exhausted.
“That’s on the big no-no list,” Burkett said. “In the US, Canada and the European Union, chloramphenicol is on everyone’s zero-tolerance list.”
Now, 11 years later, some of the honey buyers who take the trouble to test for chloramphenicol still find the banned antibiotic in some of their imported honey.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says tainted honey from China is on top of its watch list and has been for six years — since the agency released the first of three “import alerts” targeted at banned substances in honey. The FDA considers a food adulterated if, among other reasons, it contains an animal drug deemed unsafe for unapproved uses. Chloramphenicol certainly meets that definition.
In 2005, China’s Ministry of Agriculture outlawed the use of chloramphenicol in food production, but there are reports that Chinese beekeepers are ignoring the ban.
Chloramphenicol is illegal for use in bees and other food-producing animals in the US because it is impossible to determine a safe residue level, said Steve Roach, public health director of Keep Antibiotics Working, a Chicago-based group raising awareness about the hazards of antibiotics in food.
“If the Chinese authorities are unable to keep this drug from being used, then no imports of honey from China should be allowed,” Roach said.
Chloramphenicol has never been officially found in honey produced in the US or Canada, and experts say honey containing traces of the antibiotic doesn’t pose a health risk to most people.
While the FDA says chloramphenicol has been linked to aplastic anemia, a rare but serious blood disorder, other food-safety agencies point out that two teaspoons of honey laced with chloramphenicol residue contain less than one ten-millionth of a treatment dose of the antibiotic.
Most properly labeled honey warns against feeding it in any form to infants younger than 1 because studies have shown it can cause sometimes fatal botulism.
Many health practitioners, though, consider honey a minor miracle drug. As the world’s oldest sweetener, the amber syrup has been heralded by grandmothers, nannies, nurses, medicine men and physicians around the globe.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed honey for its nutritional and pharmaceutical value.
The index of medical and scientific journals at the National Medical Library in Bethesda, Maryland, lists hundreds of studies exploring honey’s value in treating, controlling or preventing diabetes, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, stress, skin conditions, sexual problems and scores of other maladies.
Honey makes a natural antibacterial agent, in part because of its high sugar content and acidity, and many developing countries still use it to treat burns and wounds.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS