[JACKRUSSELL]

SUPPLY CHAIN This family-owned workshop in Xinwangzhuang, a village in Juangsu Province, China, processes pig intestines. Mucous membranes from the intestines are used to make heparin. (Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times)

[JACKRUSSELL]

A ping list dedicated to exposing the quality, safety and security issues of food and other products made in China.


Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.

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[JACKRUSSELL]

"The way heparin is made and distributed illustrates the challenges they face. The drug’s raw material comes from mucous membranes in the intestines of slaughtered pigs. Those membranes are mixed together and cooked, a process that in China often takes place in unregulated family workshops.

"It is then transported to middlemen, called consolidators, who direct the product to plants in China that manufacture heparin’s active ingredient for shipment to either another trader or the finished dose manufacturer. In the United States, the tainted ingredients ended up at Baxter International, which later had to recall the blood thinner.

"Since the outbreak in the United States, Japan and several countries in Europe have recalled certain heparin products made with Chinese ingredients. In some instances, European traders buy and sell the heparin to companies in other countries, extending the supply chain even more.

"Anti-counterfeiting experts say that the longer the chain, the greater the opportunity for counterfeiters to adulterate the product. In fact, F.D.A. investigators have yet to figure out where in the multistage manufacturing process the chemical that mimics heparin was added."

[kittymyrib]

Yep...that’s certainly an immaculate, state-of-the-art drug factory in China. And to think that some big pharma company charges an exorbitant price for drugs made in these deplorable conditions when they get to your local drugstore.

[Cicero]

Maybe the New York Times just noticed. I think the rest of us have been concerned ever since the dog food scandal came out.

And maybe they trust the FDA and the feds to protect us. I certainly don’t. The authorities tried their very best to bury these scandals, and they didn’t do a damned thing until the news broke through their blanket of silence. And they still aren’t doing very much.

Trade with China is too important to the big money people who pay off the politicians. They will cover up as much as they can. And they still haven’t made the faintest effort to change labeling regulations, so you know where the ingredients actually come from.

[lilylangtree]

China’s own biological warfare.

[goodnesswins]

Not exactly a “clean room” environment.....yuck.

[43north]

China is an ongoing criminal enterprise just like the Clintoons.