No cover-up

BEIJING (AP):

China's scandal-plagued food and drug agency defended itself yesterday against media reports claiming it covered up problems with excessive lead in domestic supplies of spirulina, a popular algae-based health supplement.

One state media report said the State Food and Drug Administration's (SFDA) allegedly conflicting statements about the Chinese spirulina industry triggered an investigation into whether the agency was taking bribes. The SFDA didn't directly rebut or repeat the corruption allegation but defended its inspections of the supplement, taken as pill or powder.

A spokesman for the Beijing Procuratorate said yesterday that he was unaware of any such investigation but would look into it. Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he would only give his surname, Yang.

The SFDA has struggled to recover its reputation since a former commissioner was executed in 2007 for taking bribes. A string of food and drug safety problems since then, from shoddy medicine to melamine-tainted milk formula that killed six babies in 2008, further eroded public trust in the regulators overseeing China's food and drug safety.