What Kind of Sick Pigs…

The China bounty is up to 30,000RMB for turning in purveyors of fake swine flu vaccine. They should be pretty easy to spot, as currently there is no such thing as a swine flu vaccine.

Thrice the pity, since 1) the swine flu has roiled the Chinese pork market and rocketed prices; 2) the fake vaccines endanger pig populations even further, and 3) we had been going a good 1000 days without a major Chinese fake product scandal.

“It’s tragic that there aren’t easily accessible public databases to verify companies purporting to be providers of such vaccines,” says Edward Lehman. “Given its size, the pork production industry has many small players, of whom many unfortunately are unsophisticated enough that they don’t bother with due diligence in making such purchases.”

“Nonetheless, this underlines the necessity for rigorous background checks on all kinds of Chinese providers. They’re easier than ever to perform; it’s just a matter of educating people to bake it in as a procedural step.”

On a silver-lining note, foreign pig exporters, primarily the U.S. and Spain, are in hog heaven supplying the spike in Chinese demand, up 150% last year.