Costa Rica seizes tainted toothpaste

NF Reporter · 05-26-2007, 12:36 AM

AP - Health officials said Friday they have seized more than 350 tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste tainted with a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold elsewhere in the world.

Full Story...

waltky · 09-27-2008, 05:36 AM

Is China tryin' to poison the world or what???...

Police bust 'toxic shoe' ring
September 27, 2008 - ITALIAN police say they have confiscated some 1.7 million counterfeit shoes made with leather containing illegal toxins, most of them from China.

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Operation Toxic Shoes began in May and 21 Chinese and seven Italians were being prosecuted for selling counterfeit products and threatening public health, a police spokesman said.

Shoes containing hexavalent chromium compounds, which are illegal in Italy due to their high toxicity and potentially carcinogenic effect, were seized in Tuscany, police said.

A police unit responsible for financial crimes seized counterfeit imports which were mostly made in China but were labelled as "real leather" and "made in Italy", police said.

More than €20 million ($35.1m) of merchandise was seized in one of Tuscany's largest sweeps in recent years. The operation led to 45 searches including in three other Italian regions outside Tuscany.

Police bust 'toxic shoe' ring | NEWS.com.au

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China stops tainted sweet sales
Friday, 26 September 2008 - A Chinese sweet maker has stopped domestic sales of one of its best-known brands after it was found to contain the industrial chemical melamine.

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The company, Guanshengyuan, has already halted exports of the popular White Rabbit candy, made from milk. It is the latest development in a spreading food safety scandal involving milk contaminated with melamine. Traces of the chemical have also been found in Hong Kong and Japan in products containing Chinese milk.

They are among a growing number of countries which have already banned or restricted imports of Chinese products containing milk. Four babies have died and more than 53,000 children have so far been made ill by drinking contaminated powder milk in China. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has meanwhile urged five countries to immediately recall all milk powder imported from China.

The UN issued a worldwide alert two weeks ago, but Bangladesh, Burma, Burundi, Gabon and Yemen are known to have imported large amounts from two Chinese companies implicated in the scandal. The WHO also warned that several companies had been selling the tainted milk powder without licences, making it impossible to establish where all of the affected products could be.

'Big lesson'

waltky · 09-29-2008, 04:40 AM

Chinese food quality meltdown

Now, scare over Chinese coffee
29 Sep 2008, WASHINGTON: US regulators warned the public on Friday not to consume seven Mr Brown instant coffee and milk tea products that were made in China because of concerns they may be contaminated with melamine.

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The Food and Drug Administration said the products were recalled by King Car Food Industrial Co Ltd "due to possible contamination with melamine."

Infant formula tainted with the industrial chemical has resulted in hospitalization for thousands of Chinese babies
with painful kidney stones. Four have died.

The agency also warned consumers not to eat White Rabbit Creamy Candy after New Zealand authorities reported melamine contamination "at high levels."

Source

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Cadbury recalls Chinese-made chocolates
Sep 29, `08 - British chocolate maker Cadbury says its tests have "cast doubt" on the safety of its Chinese-made products.

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Cadbury says in a statement issued by its Singapore office that the tests "have cast doubt on the integrity of a range of our products manufactured in China." It was not immediately clear if the tests revealed melamine, the industrial chemical at the center of China's recent milk scandal. An Asia spokeswoman for Cadbury didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

HONG KONG - British candy maker Cadbury has recalled 11 types of its Chinese-made chocolate as a precaution, the Hong Kong government said, becoming the latest foreign company affected by China's tainted milk scandal. Cadbury Asia Pacific told the Hong Kong government's Center for Food Safety the chocolates were made in Cadbury's factory in the Chinese capital Beijing, the Hong Kong government said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear if tests found the industrial chemical melamine in the products. After-hours calls to Cadbury's media office in Britain went unanswered. China's recent food safety scandal started with the discovery of melamine in baby milk powder. Four deaths have been blamed on the bad milk, and some 54,000 children have developed kidney stones or other illnesses after drinking the contaminated baby formula. Authorities say suppliers might have added melamine, which is rich in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to deceive quality tests for protein.

Source My Way News - Cadbury recalls Chinese-made chocolates

waltky · 11-02-2008, 05:01 PM

China And The FDA...

A Broken Agency: China And The FDA Safety Gap
November 2nd, 2008 - In an essay that takes a top-down view of the agency and its myriad problems protecting the supply of pharmaceuticals, Gardiner Harris of The New York Times reviews the highlights - or lowlights - of the past year or so: the Heparin deaths, the Ranbaxy scandal and the withering criticism from Congress.

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And he notes some of the issues bedeviling the FDA as it struggles to cope with the growing role played by Chinese suppliers: antiquated FDA computer systems, an inability among FDA staff to decipher names of Chinese plants, difficult travel conditions for agency inspectors, and, of course, the debate over sufficient FDA funding. For instance, this year, 18.2 million shipments of food, devices, cosmetics and drugs are expected to enter more than 300 US ports, but the FDA had 454 investigators in 2007 - one and a half per port to scrutinize them. Here are a few more key points…

“Last year, generic drug applications to the FDA listed 1,154 plants providing active pharmaceutical ingredients: 43 percent of them were in China, and another 39 percent were in India. Only 13 percent were in the US. Branded drug makers, with their fatter profit margins, resisted buying ingredients from China for years, but with their businesses now suffering, even major drugmakers like AstraZeneca, Bayer, Baxter and Pfizer have announced deals to outsource manufacturing to China…

“Even the FDA staunchest defenders now acknowledge that something is terribly wrong. Among them is Peter Barton Hutt, who served as the agency’s general counsel during the Nixon administration and is widely considered the dean of the FDA bar in Washington…has always defended the F.D.A. No more. ‘This is a fundamentally broken agency,’ Hutt tells him, ‘and it needs to be repaired.’

“To ensure the safety of imported drugs, the FDA relies almost entirely on its own inspections of foreign plants. This was not much of a problem 30 years ago, when most medical products consumed in the US were made here and FDA inspectors could drive around to plants in their district. Most of those plants have since moved abroad, and now decades can pass between inspections. Testifying before Congress in April, Janet Woodcock, who heads the FDA’s drug center, spoke with rare frankness about the ability of the agency to do its job abroad. ‘The FDA of the last century is not configured to regulate this century’s globalized pharmaceutical industry,’ she testified…

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