Simple Food

The State Council shut down the Health Food Association of China last Tuesday because of its illegal charges on ranking and other illegal operations. The duties of the former association have been taken over by the newly established China Health Care Association (CHA), formally known as the China Health Care Science Technology Society.
　　The Health Food Association was set up in 1985 under the authority of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It published its first national health food industry ranking in August 2001, and in the following two years the association continued to publish the ranking, illegally charging fees to participants and giving inaccurate rankings, according to the State Council.
　The China Health Care Science Technology Society was established under the Ministry of Health in 1988. The two agencies both claimed to be the industry authority and with the support of favored companies, competed for dominance of the lucrative rating market.
In January 2003, in an effort to prevent industry disorder, the government started to merge the two associations. However in June 2003, the Health Food Association published a national health food product ranking, for which health food producers had paid between 2,000 and 12,000 yuan to secure a favorable listing.
　　The illegal activity was exposed on CCTV’sJiaodian Fangtan (Focus Talk) and in October 2003, two senior administration officials in charge of the association were discharged.