Bananas in Sars claim

A bizarre rumour that bananas from the island of Hainan can cause the Sars virus is doing the rounds on the streets of China, according to reports from Bejing, where food scares are rife.

This is just one of the claims circulating following a number of food-scare outbreaks in recent years, including the discovery by Hong Kong government chemists late last year that the Sudan II industrial dye was being fed to ducks to make their egg yolks redder, as well as a host of other food-related scandals.

The Sars banana rumour was dismissed by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, which stated that there had never been a case of humans contracting viruses from plants. "It is purely a rumour and it is impossible for bananas to contain Sars-like viruses," it added. "The spreaders of the false information either have inadequate relevant scientific knowledge or have ulterior motives."

But the Beijing authorities have announced plans to better monitor food products entering the capital.

Talks this week between Washington and Beijing saw the US rate food quality from China as a "top concern" and call on Beijing to improve food-safety standards.

The US wants China to make food regulation more transparent, and to allow its audit teams to travel to China to examine the food factories and farms.

Wang Weicheng, a Beijing city official, said the city would "set up a supervision system to analyse food additives, and intensify management of the approval system and record-keeping of food additive enterprises".

A system to trace food and food products to their origins would also be put in place and it would also strictly monitor the use of fertiliser and pesticides.

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