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The List: If Looks Could Kill (Chinese Products)
ForeignPolicy.com ^ | June 2007 | Foreign Policy

Posted on 06/04/2007 5:47:18 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL

In this week’s List, FP takes a look at the everyday beauty products that just aren’t worth the risk.

Eye Makeup
Beware of: Indian and Pakistani kajal or kohl, Chinese eye shadow
Killer ingredients: Lead in kohl, microorganisms in eye shadow
What’s the problem? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned in October 2006 that certain brands of kohl, a traditional cosmetic used to create black lines around the eyes, contain toxic levels of lead. Children are especially susceptible to lead poisoning, which can cause anemia, kidney problems, and brain damage. Cosmetics containing kohl are illegal in the United States, but those imported surreptitiously and sold in ethnic specialty stores usually do not disclose their lead content. “Because people commonly import kohl in luggage for both personal and commercial use, imports of these products are particularly difficult to monitor,” says Veronica Castro, an FDA spokeswoman. Eyes are an especially sensitive body part for regulators: In the past few years, the FDA began halting importation of eight brands of Chinese eye shadow due to “microbiological contamination.”

Contact Lens Solution
Beware of: Chinese manufacturing plants
Killer ingredients: parasites, bacteria
What’s the problem? California-based Advanced Medical Optics voluntarily recalled one of its products, Complete Moisture Plus, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the contact lens solution may have been responsible for infecting at least 21 consumers with a nasty eye condition called Acanthamoeba keratitis. In a previous voluntary recall in November that was caused by the presence of bacteria in the solution, the culprit was a careless factory in China. This more recent case is not thought to be manufacturing-related, however, and Advanced Medical Optics has not admitted a “product contamination issue.”

(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; toxicchina

1 posted on 06/04/2007 5:47:19 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
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To: JACKRUSSELL

Hmmm ... the FDA has become to enamored of “best practice” documentation and process — so over the top — that it ignores reality. Reality, it seems is not a “best practice”.


2 posted on 06/04/2007 5:49:49 PM PDT by bvw
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To: JACKRUSSELL
On a recent visit to China, a friend spotted this ad in a Beijing newspaper. He sent me the photo with a translation of the ad copy.

BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR AND JOIN CHINA’S NEW MONIED ELITE!

Yes, you can now join the millions of happy and prosperous Chinese citizens taking advantage of the growing numbers of American and Western multinational corporations “outsourcing” their production to the hard-working and industrious people of China. This outsourcing has now spread to their food supplies and ingestible items. Since these firms pay us for gross weight – and this new weight will be pretty gross – and the stupid American government only spot-checks imported items in these categories (they just got lucky on the anti-freeze thing), it has opened an entirely new opportunity which our beloved Chairman is offering to any Chinese citizen willing to do a little of what the foolish Americans call “grunt work.”

Installing one of these state-of-the-art food additive production facilities behind YOUR hovel is as simple as clipping the coupon below and sending it to the address shown. Your production plant will be shipped to you in 4 to 6 weeks. Supplies are limited so don’t fart around. ACT NOW!! Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

These silly Americans have an expression we have “borrowed” and modified to describe this new and exciting venture: “Don’t give me any s**t.”

Our motto will be “We won’t give any s**t. But we’ll SELL it to you fools at a really great price.”

AND LOOK FOR A NEW DROP-DEAD MONEY-MAKER COMING SOON. SOYLENT YELLOW PROMISES TO BE BIG!!

3 posted on 06/04/2007 7:19:26 PM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Arizona Carolyn; mom4kittys; blam; Salamander; Red Badger; WakeUpAndVote; dirtboy; Overtaxed; ...

4 posted on 06/05/2007 4:00:17 AM PDT by mom4kittys (If velvet could sing, it would sound like Josh Groban)
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To: mom4kittys

Thanks for the ping!


5 posted on 06/05/2007 5:39:05 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Dick Bachert; LucyT

That ad seems hard to believe.


6 posted on 06/05/2007 5:46:16 AM PDT by sweetiepiezer (Pray for W.)
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To: JACKRUSSELL; tioga; Guenevere

PING........


7 posted on 06/05/2007 5:47:50 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz

We’re doomed NOW! -will washington elites call us bigots for refusing to buy chinese?


8 posted on 06/05/2007 5:52:40 AM PDT by tioga (Fred Thompson for President.)
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To: sweetiepiezer

Hey, would I S**T you?? LOL.


9 posted on 06/05/2007 6:00:38 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: tioga

Of course they will..........

My husband normally doesn’t pay much attention to “made in” labels, except when he is buying a flag. We needed to replace ours for Memorial Day, and he refuses to buy a flag made outside this country. People can criticize them all they want, but after finding only “made in China” labels in the local mom & pop shops, he went to both WalMart and K-Mart and found American flags in both stores that were actually made here.


10 posted on 06/05/2007 6:31:26 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz

I purchase our flags from my Congressman. Many (most, all?) Congressmen sell flags that have been flown briefly over the Capitol in DC. The flags are run up the pole once and then taken down, folded, and placed in a box with a certificate of authenticity. I write my check to my Congressman’s Office Account and the flag comes in the mail 4-6 weeks later. The flags are very good quality — nylon, sewn stripes, embroidered stars — and come in different sizes. My pole needs a 4’x 6’ size which is hard to find and very expensive normally. I pay about $15 for one from my Congressman which is a bargain. Normally, I buy 3 at a time (my Congressman’s limit) and keep them on hand. After a Wisconsin winter of brutal winds (my house is on top of a hill) my flag is shredded, faded, and needs replacing. We fly the flag 24/7 with a light on it thatcomes on automatically at night.

Check with your Congressman. He/she may offer the same service.


11 posted on 06/05/2007 8:08:34 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: bvw
Hmmm ... the FDA has become to enamored of “best practice” documentation and process — so over the top — that it ignores reality. Reality, it seems is not a “best practice”.

Someone recently commented on TV that all of the government agencies are lacking leadership and direction and funding cuts have cost regulatory personal cuts.

Bush is a terrible manager, he would have a hard time getting a job managing a pay-less shoe store, and WE put him in charge of the government

12 posted on 06/05/2007 8:22:28 AM PDT by ears_to_hear
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To: Dick Bachert

I am as gullible as those fish that eat the chicken S**T that falls from the nets above.
Thanks for the laughs


13 posted on 06/05/2007 2:14:34 PM PDT by sweetiepiezer (Pray for W.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

When my brother in law’s 50th birthday was coming up I had the larger flag flown over the Capital on his 50th bday. You would have thought I gave him a million bucks, got it through my Senator, at least our Senators are good for something.
50 states 50th bday, thought it was a good idea.


14 posted on 06/05/2007 2:18:25 PM PDT by sweetiepiezer (Pray for W.)
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To: ears_to_hear
It is not the leader, for a bureaucracy has no leader, only entitlement and sinecure. I've been in with them -- the Federal bureaucracy, that is. Never of them, but caught for two or three times in with them. And a few times have had to deal with them. The DOD, the FAA, the FDA, the EPA. I know the inside and the outside.

A bureaucracy understands what keeps it alive, and that is not performance -- it is distraction, delay, delay, delay and then in last recourse: denial. No risk to career is worth any achievement (as we on the outside would call an achievement). For any achievement involves risk.

Obscure regulations and procedure, mindless awesome proportioned yet meaningless procedure is the greatest vouchsafe against risk, a secondary technique and monetarily endearing to the more agile of the bureaucrats is the use of cut-outs. Contractors, that is, the owned serf-class of the Federal Baronys. Good for grifts of the cleanest of sorts, you know.

15 posted on 06/05/2007 4:02:46 PM PDT by bvw
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