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Posted on 02/15/2008 7:58:42 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Panama relatives say hundreds poisoned
By JUAN ZAMORANO, Associated Press Writer
Thu Feb 14, 6:29 PM ET
Panama's government has vastly underestimated the number of people who died from taking medications tainted with a chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid, family members and a lawyer for the victims said Thursday.
The official death toll, set late last month in a report by the attorney general's Legal Medicine and Forensic Science Institute, is 115. But victims' families dispute the methodology used to produce that figure and estimate the number of poisoning deaths at up to 300.
"We do not agree with that investigation and we don't share their methodology," Gabriel Pascual, the leader of a committee representing victims' families, told The Associated Press. Pascual says his grandmother died after taking poisoned cough syrup in October 2006.
In mid-2006, people in Panama began dying after using cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment made at a government laboratory. Investigations found that the medicines were contaminated with diethylene glycol, commonly used in brake fluid and antifreeze.
Seeking to determine the scope of the mass poisoning, the government's forensic institute analyzed 763 potential cases, concluding that 174 of them were poisonings from diethylene glycol.
The institute said there was no evidence of poisoning in 461 cases, while 62 cases were deemed to have insufficient information and 66 were described as inconclusive. Of the 174 people who ingested tainted medicine, 59 survived, the government agency said.
The chemical allegedly was made by a Chinese company that sold it to a Spanish company saying it was 99.5 percent pure glycerin, a sweetener and thickening agent commonly used in drugs. The Spanish company then allegedly sold it to a company in Panama.
Pascual, who estimates that more than 300 people died from poisoning and more than 100 survived, contends the official investigation was fraught with contradictions. In some cases, investigators initially recognized that a victim had taken the tainted medicine but later said the cases were inconclusive.
"There is dissatisfaction" with the investigation, said attorney Renaul Escudero, a member of the nongovernmental Alternative Legal Assistance of Panama. "There is a perception that there are many more cases."
Escudero said from 25,000 to 30,000 bottles of cough syrup allegedly contaminated with diethylene glycol were prescribed to patients, which he said would make the number of both fatal victims and survivors "much higher."
Escudero claimed that because of mix-ups in the state health department that distributed the medicine, some case files were incomplete or lost.
The Legal Medicine institute's chief investigator, Dr. Jose Vicente Pachar, could not be reached for comment.
In an article published Thursday, The New York Times quoted Pachar as saying that the actual number of victims was probably much higher than what the government reported, given that victims living in isolated sections of the country probably never contacted officials.
"There are many more people who died, but either they did not dare to speak up or they were people from the interior of the country who do not have the economic means to come to the capital," said Hilda Nieto de Jaen, who says her 84-year-old mother died after taking tainted cough syrup.
Ping!
If ideology doesn’t work, poison them. Achieves the same objective.
It makes an interesting test case for anyone wishing to poison large numbers of people but I agree this is greed.
Okay. I want to stop buying imports. I wonder if there is a really fantastic website that lists American made _____ (whatever...I’m in the market for dishes right now). Does anyone know?
I bought a pair of ‘made in China’ shoes a year or so ago. The laces lasted longer than the shoes. Redwings are made in the Redwing, MN.
We used ethylene glycol as a coolant for our transmitter. Don’t drink it.
The Brooklyn Bridge is held up with substandard wire cables, a fact discovered after the construction was well underway. The steel wire manufacturer cut corners on production quality to increase his profit. The Union Army was sold cardboard shoes that melted they forded the first creek. As America switched from agriculture to industry you saw countless such examples.
It may be bizzare but Mao’s China is going through a similar period of predatory robber-baron “the public be damned” capitalism. Every modern industrial society has gone though the same thing in varying levels. It is a common and perhaps necessary period in the development of a capitalist/consumer society. In the long view it is a good thing but it’s rough on the consumer in the meantime.
So let’s all be patient with the Chicoms. They are really our friend.
They are trying sooooo hard.
/s
Whas the problema? The Chinese cough syrup killed the cough of every dead person who ingested it. Now that’s 100% effectiveness.....BRILLIANT!
I’m doing my best to avoid any Chinese foodstuffs.
I know it’s next to impossible what with wheat gluten,etc. but esp. Asian seafood, noooo way.
Only if your last name is Clinton, Bush, or a major shareholder in a company like Walmart.
Don’t forget that Sen. Diane Feinstein and her husband have pocketed $ mutli-millions from CHiCom associations/business deals.
That’s not what happened. Diethylene was likely substituted for propelyne glycol when there was a shortage of ethylene-oixide derivitives. Propylene glycol is a common food-grade chemical (and non-food grade for other human consumption uses). PG appearance and viscosity is identical to DEG. But DEG is toxic if ingested.
It likely happened because of lax quality control or someone did not understand the difference when they were trying to secure supply in a very tight market.
China should not export those. If they have to sell those, sell them only domestically.
>>>So let’s all be patient with the Chicoms. They are really our friend.
They are trying sooooo hard. /s
Your point ? Sarcasm without one simply comes out snotty.
btw, by definition people mainly interested in a fast buck aren’t communist. It’s not 1951 anymore. Whole new set of problems.
I just got Corelle dishes at a Corningware outlet - made in USA.
Anyone know a source for vitamins made in USA of American-made ingredients?
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