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Gutter oil is reprocessed kitchen waste dredged from restaurant drains |
Chinese
officials have told pharmaceutical firms to check their suppliers after claims
that some have used "gutter oil" to make antibiotics, state-run media
report.
Officials
are looking into firms that reportedly use the cheaper gutter oil rather than
the more expensive soy bean oil in the production process.
Gutter oil
is reprocessed kitchen waste dredged from restaurant drains.
It has been
part of a series of recent food safety scandals in China.
The
government said it would release its findings soon, without giving further
details.
It is not
clear whether these antibiotics pose a risk to public health, but the incident
highlights how some firms cut corners to pursue profits, says the BBC's Martin
Patience in Beijing.
Scandals
over contaminated food - most recently gutter oil - have caused considerable
public alarm in China in recent years.
In April,
state-run media reported on how officials cracked down on underground workshops
that used decomposing animal fat and organs to produce gutter oil.
Police said
that most of the oil was sold to oil manufacturers for food production and
making hotpot soup in restaurants.
In
September last year, police arrested 32 people in an operation to prevent the
sale of gutter oil as cooking oil.
More than
100 tonnes of oil produced by six underground factories were seized in raids
across 14 provinces.
The raids
took place following a four-month police inquiry.
In 2008, at
least six babies died and another 300,000 were made ill by drinking infant
formula tainted with the chemical melamine.
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