Li Xing:While we are talking about import and product safety, how do you deal with quality and food problems, safety problems within the United States?
Michael Leavitt:That's actually something we want to do better on because we are not perfect in the United States. We have our own food safety. We do have problems from time to time. It is a good system. But it is not adequate for the future. We know that, if we see more and more products coming from other countries. We have to have a better system. We have just recently published a plan to overhaul our system and to improve it, that includes many of the things we have already talked about.
Li Xing:So what are your biggest challenges in maintaining high quality for your food products?
Michael Leavitt:First, it's recognizing we can't inspect everything. So we have to build quality in at every step of the way. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. I went to a lettuce processing plant. The manager of the plant said our motto is "know your grower", meaning know where your product came from. He said I don't simply want to know where it came from. I want to know the quality of the water that was put on the plant as it was growing. I want to know the nutrients that were fed to it. I want to know who picked it, I want to know the day they picked it. I want to know how cold it was kept after they picked it. Who transported it. In other words, knowing the quality of the process every step of the way, rather than saying I know it came from this place or that. I want to know that quality was built in. That's the challenge of the 21st Century - it's building quality in to the every step of the way, rather than simply standing at the border and trying to catch things that might be unsafe or of low quality from coming into a country or finding their way to the shelf. I understand that this is a big concern in China, in the same way that it is in the United States. We all want safe food, we all want high-quality food.
Li Xing: Talking about Chinese medicines, China apparently is making raw ingredients for American medicines. Is that why you and your Chinese colleagues are working on the agreements?
Michael Leavitt:Yes, well one of the things I think that we all came to understand better is that in China, the State Food and Drug Administration, SFDA, has a process and authority to regulate drugs and devices for use within China, but they have no authority to regulate the quality and safety of drugs and devices that are produced for export. So you can understand that those who are receiving products from China, then would ask a logical question, well if they're not checking it, who is? So we, in our agreement, concluded there are some things that China could do to give more comfort to those who are receiving products from China in that category. That's the kind of problem we have to work through. When there's a problem, it creates an opportunity for improvement. And if we have a process in place, and good cooperation, then we can solve those problems. A key to that, of course, is transparency, because transparency is the seed of trust. A global economy requires trust in order to operate. The more trust, the more robust the market will be.
Li Xing:Because you are the Secretary of Health and Human Services and you have been saying that health care is truly an international language of caring. You were also aboard a US Navy ship offering dental and other basic medical care in Central America and the Caribbean. How successful is the developed world in assisting developing countries?
Michael Leavitt:Well, I've come to understand, and I'm sure your readers fully do as well, that health is the universal language. When my grandbaby is sick, I worry just like a mother in western China or a grandfather in western China about their health. And it affects me deep inside, because I love that baby and I want very much for her or him to be happy. It occupies my mind. So as I travel around the world and I see people who lack basic healthcare, my heart responds to it. I hope our country can be as helpful as we have resources to be. We can't solve all the world's problems.
Li Xing:I understand.
Michael Leavitt:We can't make certain that everyone has healthcare. But we can do some things, and this hospital ship is one example. We built a ship that is a floating hospital. And we went to a lot of Central and South American countries where the healthcare isn't what they aspire it to be. And I saw people getting operations, I saw them having dental work done, I saw them getting glasses and things that they weren't able to have in their own setting. That just changes their life. To someone who can't eat, suddenly to be able to eat, that changes their life forever. To someone who couldn't see because they didn't have glasses, to get glasses just changes everything. There are places in the United States where people don't have the healthcare we would like them to have, and we need to work on that. There are places in China that that's true, too. I was in Africa in August. And I saw so many people who were sick with AIDS or other things. Last night I had dinner with the former minister of health here in China, who's become a friend of mine. And he told me he's been in Africa more than twenty different times. So China does a lot to reach out to people, too. This is a responsibility that nations like China and the United States have the responsibility to do what we can.
