China says cardboard bun report was fake, candy maker denies formaldehyde problem

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese police detained a television reporter for allegedly faking an investigative report on pork buns made with cardboard, as a candy maker denied Philippine claims that one of its products was tainted with formaldehyde.

The actions come as China is attempting to contain growing allegations that have hammered its reputation as a food and drug exporter.

Beijing Television apologized to the public during an evening news broadcast for the fake bun report and said the reporter had been detained by police, but did not say when. A copy of the Wednesday broadcast was obtained by AP on Thursday.

"He used deceptive means to get the footage on the air," said news anchor Wang Ye, without giving specifics. "The Beijing Public Security Bureau has taken the criminal suspect, Zi, into custody and he will be severely dealt with according to law."

The official Xinhua News Agency said the suspect's full name was Zi Beijia.

Zi's footage appeared to show a makeshift kitchen where people made fluffy buns stuffed with 60 percent cardboard that had been softened in caustic soda and 40 percent fatty pork.

Police said Zi had told editors he wanted to investigate the quality of pork buns, and spent two weeks visiting stands but could not find anything to report, Xinhua said. He filmed the fake report after coming under pressure to produce a story, the agency said.

Beijing Television said Zi brought meat, flour, cardboard and other ingredients to a downtown Beijing neighborhood, and had four migrant workers make the buns for him while he filmed the process.

The station said it was "profoundly sorry" for the fake report and its "vile impact on society," and vowed to prevent inaccurate news coverage in the future.

The news report _ along with a spate of real food scares involving toxic fish, tainted pork and egg yolks colored with a cancer-causing dye _ have harmed China's reputation as an exporter and alarmed people at home.

Shanghai-based confectioner Guan Sheng Yuan Co. said it sent samples of its "White Rabbit" milk candy to a lab for testing after it was listed among Chinese products banned by the Philippine Bureau of Food and Drugs because of contamination with formaldehyde, a preservative and embalming fluid.

"Guan Sheng Yuan Co. makes this pledge to society: Absolutely at no point during the manufacturing of White Rabbit milk candy are preservatives added," the company said in a statement posted on its Web site late Wednesday.

Rivals have made numerous counterfeit versions of the popular candy, the company said, calling the Philippine food and drug bureau "irresponsible" for not checking the candy's authenticity, and threatening to sue.

Joshua Ramos, deputy director of the Philippine food and drugs bureau, insisted Thursday that samples of the candy that the agency found tainted with formaldehyde were genuine and obtained from legitimate distributors.

"They have to prove that they were fake," Ramos told AP. "As far as we are concerned, the samples we got came from legitimate sources."

The speed and severity of Guan Sheng Yuan's response underscored concerns that the deteriorating reputation of Chinese food exports could spread to some of the country's best-known brands.

Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, said food safety is a problem for both developed and developing countries. The agency receives about 200 reports of food safety problems every month from its 193 member states, she said.

"I've never seen any food produced by any country being totally safe," Chan said at a news conference Wednesday in Geneva, without specifically mentioning China. "In some countries they have the law, but implementation is a problem. In some countries they do implement but there is either human error or ... certain issues, you do see a food safety problem popping up from time to time."