WASHINGTON -- The United States should yank away the "welcome" sign for many Chinese food and medicine ingredients, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told President Bush and the head of the Food and Drug Administration in letters he sent Monday.

Recent animal deaths have been blamed on pet food containing an ingredient imported from China that was contaminated with melamine, a plastic precursor used as a fertilizer. Feed tainted with the same imported ingredient was sent to 38 Hoosier poultry operations.

In addition, the Washington Post reported Sunday that the FDA had confiscated 107 contaminated food imports from China at U.S. ports last month and more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

Even though scientists have concluded that the risk to humans from the chickens fed the tainted feed is very low, Bayh told Bush that the episode illustrates how vulnerable U.S. consumers are "to potentially poisonous agents that may be intentionally delivered to American citizens."

In a letter to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, Bayh said the FDA should consider restricting Chinese exports of food and medicine ingredients "until it can be established that its bulk ingredients meet U.S. health and safety standards."

Bayh did not say how the guarantee would be met.

The Washington Post article quoted FDA reports that showed its inspectors who are able to check less than 1 percent of regulated imports refused 298 food shipments from China. By contrast, 56 shipments from Canada were rejected, even though it exports about $10 billion in FDA-regulated food and agricultural products to the United States compared to about $2 billion from China.

Among the FDA "refusal reports" quoted by the Washington Post were juices and fruits rejected as "filthy," prunes tinted with chemical dyes not approved for human consumption, frozen breaded shrimp preserved with nitrofuran, an antibacterial that can cause cancer, and swordfish rejected as "poisonous."

"While our over-stretched FDA inspectors have been vigilant in policing this problem, recent evidence indicates that a firmer approach is needed," Bayh wrote to the FDA.

U.S. and Chinese officials are meeting this week in Washington to discuss trade frictions and other economic issues. China has come under increasing pressure in Congress over its trade and currency policies and intellectual property violations.

Bayh, for instance, has called a hearing of the subcommittee he chairs to hear witnesses Wednesday discuss China's artificial devaluation of its currency and its denial of market access to U.S. financial services.

In his letter to Bush, Bayh called on the administration to release an FDA-developed plan to guard against agents and toxins posing a serious threat to public health. The document was never made public.

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