Posted on 05/19/2007 6:35:37 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
Diethylene glycol, a poisonous ingredient in some antifreeze, has been found in 6,000 tubes of toothpaste in Panama, and customs officials there said Friday that the product appeared to have originated in China.
``Our preliminary information is that it came from China, but we don't know that with certainty yet,'' said Daniel Delgado Diamante, Panama's director of customs.
``We are still checking all the possible imports to see if there could be other shipments.''
Some of the toothpaste, which arrived several months ago in the free trade zone next to the Panama Canal, was re-exported to the Dominican Republic in seven shipments, customs officials said.
A newspaper in Australia reported Friday that one brand of the toothpaste had been found on supermarket shelves there and had been recalled.
Diethylene glycol is the same poison that the Panamanian government inadvertently mixed into cold medicine last year, killing at least 100 people. Records show that in that incident the poison, falsely labeled as glycerin, a harmless syrup, also originated in China.
There is no evidence that the tainted toothpaste is in the United States, according to U.S. government officials.
Panamanian health officials said diethylene glycol had been found in two brands of toothpaste, labeled in English as Excel and Cool. The tubes contained diethylene glycol concentrations of between 1.7 percent and 4.6 percent, said Luis Martinez, a prosecutor who is looking into the shipments.
Health officials say they do not believe the toothpaste is harmful, because users spit it out after brushing, but they nonetheless took it out of circulation as a precaution.
Martinez, the prosecutor, said at a recent news conference that the toothpaste lacked the required health certificates and had entered the market mixed in with products intended for animal consumption. He said laboratory tests had found up to 4.6 percent diethylene glycol in tubes of Cool toothpaste.
The Excel brand had 2.5 percent.
Miriam Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, said she knew of no one who had become sick from using the toothpaste.
Doug Arbesfeld, a spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said diethylene glycol was not approved for use in toothpaste. Though the FDA has no evidence that the tainted toothpaste slipped into the United States, he added: ``We are looking into the situation in Panama.''
Delgado, the director of Panamanian customs, said the Dominican authorities had been notified to be on the lookout for the suspect toothpaste.
In Panama, the poison was detected by a consumer who called the pharmacy and drugs section of the health ministry to report having seen diethylene glycol listed as an ingredient in toothpaste at a store in downtown Panama City.
The ministry fined the store $25,000 and ordered it closed for not following proper procedures in putting products up for sale.
The Northern Star, a newspaper in the southeastern Australian city of Lismore, reported Friday on its Web site that the Excel brand of toothpaste had been found in a chain of supermarkets there and taken off the shelves immediately.
No illnesses were reported.
Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that a Chinese factory not certified to make pharmaceutical ingredients sold 46 barrels of syrup containing diethylene glycol that had been falsely labeled as 99.5 percent pure glycerin.
That syrup passed through several trading companies before ending up in Panama, where it was mixed into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine.
At least 100 people, including children, died as a direct result, according to Dimas Guevara, a Panamanian prosecutor who is leading the investigation into the deaths.
Over the years, counterfeiters have found it financially advantageous to substitute diethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting syrup, for its chemical cousin glycerin, which is usually much more expensive.
Nice
As do the other posters... $$$ talk and Wall Street can’t ignore better margins due to cheaper labor and raw materials.
Oh well, if there were honest politicians (silly me), we would have some protection, but they TOO are on the take!
It's now clearly a matter of our health, in addition to the fact that is also simply wiser to stop making a totalitarian state wealthier. It certainly makes no sense to enrich a totalitarian state that is also willing to poison its customers.
We have no need from any food or other consumable product from Red China, no matter how cheaply it is priced; let them rot in their own poisoned system.
1984 all over again
LOL! really?!
There are some nice ones, but then there are lots of... well, how can I put it... I dreaded even a quick walk-through after it was tidied up for foreign visitors.
Did you know Hershey’s is closing plants in the US and Canada, laying off thousands of workers, and moving to Mexico? It’s lousy chocolate anyway. Don’t buy it.
While in the hospital last year they issued me a toothbrush and a smll tube of TRI-LEAF toothpaste. Product of China.
I still have it but not for long. File 13!
Colgate, on the other hand is made in Canada.
If everybody used foreign-made condoms, then Westerner’s birth-rate could be improved!
Not sure I am serious about that, but....
Exactly. And the number of people who have died worldwide from manufactures using DEG as a glycerin substitute is rather startling.
Consuming DEG is about like drinking automobile anti-freeze. They both have a sweet taste, are clear, odorless, miscible in water and (drum roll please) result in renal failure.
Man, I know it. Baking soda works for toothpaste and when I’m staying home, I sometimes just brush real good with plain water. I’ve also started using plain old white vinegar for underarm deodorant. I get my soap from the health food store so it doesn’t have a bunch of additives in it. - Even with being as simple as you can, there always seems to be some yahoo so greedy of gain it’s really sad. - I reckon I’m clean enough I don’t smell, or if I do no one tells me. :O)
Did you know Hershey’s is closing plants in the US and Canada, laying off thousands of workers, and moving to Mexico?
_______________________________________________
they have a plant or two in Mexico, they are opening plaants in China and India.
Was posted awhile back.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1822647/posts
:Hershey is looking to shift more manufacturing to India, China, Mexico
i am actually going to make very good friends with my Amish neighbors
Alright; but I really don’t want to get involved in a land war in Asia...
Ugly way to go, too. Diethylene glycol, if my memory is correct, destroys the functioning of the liver, permanently. Without a liver transplant, you die.
I asked a Hershey worker here about that the other day - she was VERY surprised by what I told her I heard was happening....I don’t think she believed it. She kept saying...”Pennsylvania?”
Possibly. I read awhile back that China has consistently refused to let our FDA inspectors in. What tha heck? And we STILL allow them to provide food products?
There that is the way it should be. Picked up a can of peaches in walmart the other-day, walking down the lane I noticed it said product of china, now walmart will need to pay someone to put it back. I threw it on the nearest shelf.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.