China denies selling human flesh as tinned corned beef in Zambia in Africa

[uhnope]

Source: BBC

China's foreign ministry has denied reports that Chinese food companies are canning human flesh and selling it in Africa as corned beef.

The country's state-run Xinhua news agency said one tabloid newspaper in Zambia was falsely quoting an unnamed woman living in China. She said Chinese firms were collecting dead human bodies, marinating them and packing them in tins.

Chinese spokesman Hong Lei said the reports were "irresponsible".

The Chinese Ambassador to Zambia, Yang Youming, said the reports were aimed at destroying the long-standing partnership between the two countries.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36341367/china-denies-selling-human-flesh-as-tinned-corned-beef-in-zambia-in-africa

[left-of-center2012]

1. I find this story hard to swallow

[BigBearJohn]

10. you one funny guy LOC

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. Maybe it's an acquired taste ...

[awoke_in_2003]

12. Speaking of which...

I have gotten the best head in Maryland.

[Blue_Tires]

23. brilliant...!

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. Soylent Green is people, after all.

[tom_kelly]

4. Tastes like chicken...

[lordsummerisle]

5. Well at least they were marinated first

[Kaleva]

6. Maybe some Chinese wanted to be turned into Zambian poop?

[Oneironaut]

7. Episode of "Bones" irl...

[mike_c]

8. this story really begs the question of whether it's irresponsible to publish "stories..."

...that are not credible. I mean, OK-- a local tabloid wrote it but the BBC has evidently picked it up. This is the sort of thing that inspires mob violence and ethnic hatred.

The truth of the story is very easily tested. It would take just a few minutes of lab time to test for human specific antigens or genetic markers, and the tests are definitive (although positives might have to be carefully screened to eliminate contamination). But still-- WTF is the BBC doing publishing this nonsense without confirmation?

[agincourt]

9. There was an Anthony Burgess novel

out of the early sixties called "The Wanting Seed", in which the Chinese were selling canned human, marketed as an item called "Bulley". I always think of that book when I see articles like this. This was the same writer of "A Clockwork Orange".

[patsimp]

11. Sadly, I believe this story

[Sunlei]

17. Slaughter to can line must never stop even if meat cutter/mincer lines rips off your fingers

[cliffordu]

13. Bwahahhaha

Man. Of all the things someone might have to deny doing in this world.....

[Baobab]

14. This is total BS.

Cannibalism may be part of Chinese history but it doesn't ever occur in prosperous modern China. Not since the horrible famine in the late 1950s-1960

[Spacedog1973]

20. Not exactly

There are huge areas of China that live in extreme poverty that Chinese authorities try to hide from external observers. A tourist can't simply go anywhere in China for those reasons. Does that mean cannibalism exists in some remote rural pocket? I have no idea, but it certainly isn't impossible.

[Bonobo]

22. ABC doesn't think so.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/chinese-made-infant-flesh-capsules-seized-korea/story?id=16296176

Chinese-Made Infant Flesh Capsules Seized in S. Korea

The dried flesh of dead infants appears to be the not-so-secret ingredient in a health supplement that is reportedly being smuggled out of China.

The performance-enhancement pills, touted for increasing vitality and sex drive, have been found in the luggage of tourists and in international mail, according to South Korean authorities.

They said they had confiscated nearly 17,500 of the human flesh capsules since last August, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

"This is gross, as well as creepy," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who consults regularly with the Centers for Disease Control.

"We have no idea how this material is processed and under what circumstances," he said. "If it's not done in a hygienic fashion to make assurances infections are excluded, it could contain viruses as well as bacteria."

The dried human tissue may also not have been sterilized, according to Schaffner. "It's an extremely dubious for an operation like this with the potential for infection complications."

It is not known whether these pills made of human flesh have appeared in the United States.

[mac56]

15. "My bologna has a first name...."

[uhnope]

19. you win

the thread

[Sunlei]

16. Africans should run DNA tests on imported prepared foods. Easy to do and tests last year found fraud

[surrealAmerican]

18. So, the "corned beef" is non-human. That brings up two questions.

1. What kind of animal is it?
2. What's in the canned "ham"?

[ileus]

21. Even for the Red Chinese this seems a little far fetched.