“But it’s ten cents cheaper. And that’s all that matters!”
Instead of the promised “we’ll bring the Chinese up to our standards”; they are trying to bring us down to their toxic air water and ground standards.
“U.S. officials asked their Chinese counterparts to increase oversight of food and drug exports Thursday as the list of potentially deadly products reaching U.S. shores kept growing.
“The U.S. asked China to require exporters to register with the government, amid other measures meant to provide greater assurance of the safety of their products. The requests came amid ongoing problems with Chinese exports, including chemically spiked pet food ingredients and, as of Thursday, potentially poisonous toothpaste and toxic fish.
“The Chinese understand very well that any nation that does not create an atmosphere of trust with consumers and customers, they will be disadvantaged quickly on the world market,” Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told reporters.
“A Chinese Embassy spokeswoman declined to comment other than to refer a reporter to previous statements made by government officials. Earlier this week, Vice Premier Wu Yi, in Washington for high-level economic talks, warned against politicizing economic and trade issues.
“”Obviously, there is a problem in China. It keeps getting bigger and we keep seeing more problems in different realms,” said Chris Waldrop of the Consumer Federation of America.
“On Thursday, even more potential problems were disclosed: The FDA said it was stopping all imports of Chinese toothpaste to test for a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold elsewhere in the world. The testing will look for diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid, spokesman Doug Arbesfeld said. The imports will be released only if they test negative for the chemical. The announcement came following reports that tainted Chinese toothpaste was sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama.”
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=106&sid=1149695
It's sort of a social varient of Gresham's law: Bad [cheap] ingredients drive out good [expensive] ingredients.