Photo: VCG

Two chefs from a restaurant in Nantong, East China’s Jiangsu Province, were sentenced to two years and one year and six months in prison, respectively, with probation, and were fined 160,000 yuan ($22,000) altogether for the production and sale of toxic and harmful food. They were found to have put prescription antidiarrheal medicine in diners’ dishes to avoid mass food-poisoning incident. 

Gentamicin sulfate, a kind of antibiotic and prescription medicine used for treating diarrhea, had been illegally put by the restaurant’s head chef surnamed Sha and the cook surnamed Fu into a total of 1,612 helpings of stewed dishes, with the total sales revenue of 77,376 yuan, since 2023. According to China’s Food Safety Law, medicines shall not be added to food products during production and sales, the Nanjing-based Modern Express reported. 

Despite that gentamicin used to be a commonly used medicine for the treatment of dysentery and diarrhea, it also has a side effect of causing childhood deafness. 

In September 2023, a staffer from the restaurant reported to the local government hotline that gentamicin injection was added as a food additive to the dishes at the restaurant. In a following raid, law enforcement personnel found four used boxes of gentamicin sulfate injection in the kitchen trash can and another 101 boxes of the antidiarrheal medicine yet to be used at the office of the head chef. 

Tests on the dish samples collected from the restaurant and the unopened injection showed evidence of gentamicin. 

The sentence was announced on April 23, 2024, and the two chefs have also made a public apology in media. 

Law enforcement personnel also found that all the gentamicin sulfate injection was purchased from the same store of a chain pharmacy. A restaurant staffer surnamed Zhang bought the medicine without prescription. 

Meanwhile, it violated the national regulations on drug management for the pharmacy to sell the prescription drugs without a prescription. 

Through investigation, the local procuratorial authorities also found that multiple stores of the chain pharmacy had been illegally selling gentamicin sulfate injection for a long time. 

On January 31, 2024, the local procuratorial authorities issued an advice to the local market supervision department and urged the market watchdog to punish the violations and carry out thorough investigations of illegally adding food additives and conduct special rectification on medicine retails. 

Finally, the restaurant was fined 1.18 million yuan and its business license was revoked by the market supervision department. The two chefs and two restaurant managers were banned from working in the food production businesses or catering services for life or in the next five years. Both the restaurant and the four people were listed on the dishonest list. 

Besides, the local market watchdog has inspected 335 catering service providers and 508 medicine retailor companies, and has ordered 120 pharmacies to conduct rectification. 

Global Times