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Mon 21 May, 2007 07:07 am
Tainted Chinese Imports Common
In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 20, 2007; Page A01
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.
Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.
Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051901273.html?referrer=email
I can't help but wonder why the FDA or who ever has the power banning all shipments of food and medicines from China. Are the waiting util there is a major inciedence of poiseng and death caused by tainted food or medicine imported from there?
profits come before morals and ethics, everytime.
Another day another report of pioson in a product imported from China.
Throw away toothpaste made in China
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government warned consumers on Friday to avoid using toothpaste made in China because it may contain a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze.
Out of caution, the Food and Drug Administration said, people should throw away toothpaste with labeling that says it was made in China. The FDA is concerned that these products may contain diethylene glycol.
The agency is not aware of any poisoning from toothpaste in the United States, but it did find the antifreeze ingredient in a shipment at the U.S. border and at two retail stores: a Dollar Plus store in Miami and a Todo A Peso store in Puerto Rico.
Officials said they are primarily concerned about toothpaste sold at bargain retail outlets. The ingredient in question, called DEG, is used as a lower-cost sweetener and thickening agent. The highest concentration of the chemical found in toothpaste so far was between 3 percent and 4 percent of the product's overall weight.
"It does not belong in toothpaste even in small concentrations," said the FDA's Deborah M. Autor
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/01/chinese.toothpaste.ap/index.html
Another day and another recall of Chinese manufactured garbage. What action should our government agencies take or should they continue to turn a blind eye.
We need to change their status from Most Favored Nation to Most Tainted Nation and halt trade on food, medicines or any other topical item then make them earn the privilege of resuming trade by way of cleaning up their act and becoming a responsible world trader.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Toy-making giant Mattel Inc. issued recalls today for about 9 million Chinese-made toys that contain magnets children can swallow or that could have lead paint.
The recall includes 7.3 million play sets, including Polly Pocket dolls and Batman action figures, and 253,000 die-cast cars that contain lead paint.
Just for comparison: How common are tainted American products?
E-coli has been a problem in several cases recently in our own food so I'm sure since we export so much food that it probably occasionally shows up in the shipped food.
But I'm not aware of frequent banned or 'unsafe' content related recalls.
Re: Tainted Chinese Imports Common
au1929 wrote:Tainted Chinese Imports Common
In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 20, 2007; Page A01
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.
Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.
Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051901273.html?referrer=email
I can't help but wonder why the FDA or who ever has the power banning all shipments of food and medicines from China. Are the waiting util there is a major inciedence of poiseng and death caused by tainted food or medicine imported from there?
Aren't there generic drugs coming in from China?
The day after it was revealed some vinyl baby bibs sold in Toys "R" Us were contaminated with lead, the Daily News was still able to easily buy them.
The Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, Calif., became the latest group to show that made-in-China products could pose a health hazard to kids.
Its tests found the level of lead to be three times that allowed in paint, and the center called for the products to be removed from store shelves. They remained easily available in Babies "R" Us in Union Square, however.
Parent company Toys "R" Us played down findings that its products are unsafe.
"We require [the products we sell] to meet extremely high safety standards, including both federal government requirements and the even more stringent California Proposition 65 requirements," said spokeswoman Katie Reczek.
The tainted bibs include the Babies "R" Us inhouse brands "Especially for Baby" and "Koala Baby," which sell in stores for less than $5 each and have illustrations of baseball bats, soccer balls and Disney's Winnie the Pooh characters.
"Lead is a very potent, toxic metal. Lead in babies' bibs is unnecessary; we think it needs to stop," said Caroline Cox, research chief at the Center for Environmental Health. "It can have really profound effects on kids."
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates children's products, found that bibs that were cracked or ripped carried a greater risk of lead exposure, but it did not push for the products to be recalled.
New Yorkers buying baby products said yesterday they were getting mixed messages.
"I think it's crazy; the majority of kids' toys are made in China. You don't know what to trust," said Trisha Breault, 25, a fashion designer from Queens.
The bibs are the latest made-in-China products found to pose dangers to kids. U.S. toy giant Mattel recently recalled millions of Chinese-made products because they contained dangerous magnets or high levels of lead.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is also calling for the creation of an import czar to monitor the flow of toxic products arriving in the U.S.
"The fact that every week we have to frantically pull Chinese goods off store shelves shows that our safeguards are failing," Schumer said in a statement.
He is sending a letter to Secretary of State Rice today urging the State Department to demand China open up its manufacturing plants to U.S. safety inspectors.
[email protected]
We know what it means when this administration cracks down on something....yup nothing.
Excerpt:
U.S. takes measured steps after China import scares
Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:59PM EDT
By Missy Ryan - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Americans' concerns grow about food and goods from China, the Bush administration and Congress are taking tentative steps toward ensuring dangerous products are stopped at the border.
Recommendations are due next month on Bush's desk from a new import safety panel, and lawmakers have already floated a raft of bills aimed at beefing up import oversight, but onlookers doubt far-reaching changes will soon follow.
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1543128820070815
So just what's the deal here? You want more "nanny" government to protect us from ourselves? Why can't you conservatives take responsibility for yourselves instead of always asking the government to do it for you? Jesus, men/women stand on your own two feet. There's nothing in the constitution that says the items imported from other countries has to be safe. Do you want the government to hire millions of tasters (incompetent bastards looking for a welfare dime)?
Next thing you know conservatives will demand clean drinking water!!!!!
Quote:Why can't you conservatives take responsibility for yourselves instead of always asking the government to do it for you?
LOL! That's the most perverted statement I've read on A2K...and that's saying a lot. LOL!
We know you're unconventional...but dude...lay off Rush Limbaugh's meds.
And the beat goes on
Johnson & Johnson tracks down maker of phony diabetes test
By Allan Dodds Frank and Lisa Rapaport Bloomberg NewsPublished: August 16, 2007
NEW YORK: A global manhunt begun by Johnson & Johnson has traced to China counterfeit versions of an at-home diabetes test used by 10 million Americans to take sensitive measurements of blood sugar levels.
Potentially dangerous copies of the OneTouch Test Strip sold by Johnson & Johnson's LifeScan unit surfaced in U.S. and Canadian pharmacies last year, according to federal court documents unsealed in June but only recently discovered by Bloomberg News.
Court filings disclose, for the first time, that China is the source of about one million phony test strips, which have turned up in at least 35 states and in Canada, Greece, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest consumer-health products maker, learned of the counterfeit tests after 15 patients complained of faulty results last September.
Tipped off by Johnson & Johnson, which is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide consumer alert in October without disclosing the link to China. While no injuries were reported, inaccurate test readings may lead a diabetic to inject the wrong amount of insulin, causing harm or death, the agency said.
Fake medicines are a $32 billion global business, said the World Health Organization, and the Food and Drug agency said it had run 54 counterfeit investigations in 2006, almost twice as many as in the year before.
"Growth in counterfeit medicines and devices is probably the biggest health threat besides infectious disease," said Peter Pitts, director of the Center for Medicines in the Public Interest in New York and formerly an agency official investigating fake drugs.
"The source was from China, through Canada, to the United States," said Steven Gutman, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Devices and Evaluation at the agency in Rockville, Maryland, referring to the phony test strips. "As far as we can tell, the counterfeiter has been put out of business in the U.S."
The court documents show, also for the first time, a worldwide distribution chain discovered in the past year by investigators hired by Johnson & Johnson. The trail, initiated by consumer complaints to a LifeScan hotline, first led detectives to 700 pharmacies where the products were sold, then to eight U.S. wholesalers and then to two importers, one in the United States, who was tracked down in a hotel room in Las Vegas, and another in Canada.
Records seized from the importers show the counterfeit strips were bought from Henry Fu and his company, Halson Pharmaceutical, which, according to its Internet site, is based in Shanghai.
Halson's Web site says that the company distributes and manufactures medical supplies like syringes, and is run by Fu, who, according to a court order, is also known as Su Zhi Yong. Fu was arrested by the Chinese authorities and remains in prison in China, awaiting resolution of his case in the People's Court of Shanghai.
LifeScan sells a variety of strips under the OneTouch Ultra and OneTouch Basic Profile names. The test sells in the United States without prescription for about $1 per strip.
Johnson & Johnson officials first learned that corrupted strips were being sold "between Sept. 18 and Sept. 28, 2006, when LifeScan received complaints from 15 customers from various states, including Wisconsin, New Jersey and New York, concerning the same lot," Johnson & Johnson said in court papers.
On Oct. 5, investigators hired by LifeScan visited three pharmacies in Wisconsin and found OneTouch packages with a lot number not created by the company's plants in Inverness, Scotland and Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, the papers say. On the same day, another investigator, following a call to LifeScan's toll-free hotline, found a package with the same phony lot number in a Brooklyn, New York drugstore.
"The first box we found, in fact, had a unique lot number," Potter said at a hearing held July 13 by Judge Sandra Townes at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. "The counterfeiters counterfeited every element from the original box, except they put a fake lot number. They really did us a favor and we were able to advance this case quite rapidly because of that."
On Oct. 13, the U.S. Food and Drug agency published its consumer alert and LifeScan issued a press release and notified pharmacists, distributors and wholesalers to watch for packages with four separate lot numbers.
Pharmacists told investigators they had bought the strips from wholesalers who, in turn, said they had purchased the product from Royal Global Wholesale, of Boynton Beach, Florida. That company is run by Jacques Duplessis from his home.
A Johnson & Johnson team raided the Duplessis Boynton Beach home and discovered he was vacationing in Las Vegas. A seizure order from a federal court allowed Johnson & Johnson to take possession of business records from his Las Vegas hotel room.
"My client is very distraught that he was distributing test strips that were alleged to be counterfeit," said Steven Horowitz, an attorney for Duplessis.
The other importer from China, court documents show, is a Montreal company known as Zoe Diagnostics, owned by Alexander Vega. He worked for LifeScan for nine years and owns another Canadian company called Blue Sky World with Duplessis.
"Our clients reiterate their denial that they ever engaged in the sale of counterfeit product and expect that their position will eventually be vindicated before the courts," said George Pollack, Vega's attorney in Montreal.
More fears about China
Published: August 17, 2007
Will Beijing's leaders never learn? First, Mattel recalled millions of tainted, Chinese-made toys this week - just the latest scare over Chinese goods that is raising doubts worldwide about doing business with China. Now there are reports that the Chinese government is withholding information on a fast-spreading virus decimating its pig population, much as it tried to cover up the SARS epidemic in 2003.
So far, there are no signs that this virus is a threat to humans, although no one can be sure. What Beijing should have learned in 2003 - and what it urgently needs to grasp now - is that when it comes to public safety, secrecy is never the right policy.
The world is too small to pretend that any one country has the right to try to handle a spreading infection in scientific near-secrecy. Chinese officials claim that the disease is an infection called blue-ear pig disease. But that diagnosis has not been confirmed by any outside agencies, and China has not shared tissue samples yet that would allow confirmation.
This is an extremely risky policy. The disease, which may be the result of mutating pathogens, is spreading rapidly. And its effects are more lethal than those usually associated with blue-ear pig disease, a relatively common ailment. The number of pig deaths has not been reliably reported so far, but the epidemic appears to be widespread. Farmers are selling animals in panic, and the disruption to pork supplies is beginning to have broader economic consequences.
The risks reach far beyond China. A similar virus has already been seen in Vietnam and Myanmar. What China needs to do now is tell the truth about what is happening and work with the rest of the world to make sure this disease does not spread out of control. That is essential for Chinese agriculture. And it's essential for China's reputation as a reliable trading partner and a responsible member of the global community.
Reality throws some cold water on the heads of Chinese-import-bashers.
Today's New York Times[size=18] wrote:Mattel Apologizes to China for Recalls[/size]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 21, 2007
BEIJING (AP) -- U.S.-based toy giant Mattel Inc. issued an extraordinary apology to China on Friday over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified.
[...]
Mattel ordered three high-profile recalls this summer involving more than 21 million Chinese-made toys, including Barbie doll accessories and toy cars because of concerns about lead paint and tiny magnets that could be swallowed.
The recalls have prompted complaints from China that manufacturers were being blamed for design faults introduced by Mattel.
On Friday, Debrowski acknowledged that ''vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China's manufacturers.''
Lead-tainted toys accounted for only a small percentage of all toys recalled, he said, adding that: ''We understand and appreciate deeply the issues that this has caused for the reputation of Chinese manufacturers.''
In a statement issued by the company, Mattel said its lead-related recalls were ''overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of the U.S. standards.
Source
Maybe, just maybe, some other American bashers of Chinese products owe the Chinese an apology, too.
Those asians are all inscrutable. Especially the Chinese.
dyslexia wrote:Those asians are all inscrutable. Especially the Chinese.
Full disclosure: the author of the above post was born in Asia. Don't let his Stetson fool you: he's an import too. Whether he's tainted or not I'd have to ask the Lady Dianne.
Thomas wrote:Maybe, just maybe, some other American bashers of Chinese products owe the Chinese an apology, too.
Well, Mattel shouldered the blame over the toy recalls - other Americans won't loose their hold on the bashing toy, I could imagine ...