Yes, the Chinese toothpastes were already recalled in Australia,
Panama, and someplace else -- I can't recall off-hand. Previous reports
mentioned deaths in Panama under investigation in relation to the
ingredient, and 51 deaths in Panama during the same recent days from
tainted Chinese cough medicine with that ingredient. According to an
AP news story today by Anita Chang on those Chinese toothpastes (not
ingredients in more common brands) found in two bargain stores in Miami
and Puerto Rico:
>The FDA increased its scrutiny of toothpaste made in China because
>of reports that the products may contain diethylene glycol, a
>thickening agent used as a low-cost -- but frequently deadly --
>substitute for glycerin, a sweetener commonly used in drugs.

I have to agree that I am very leery of the import situation we as a
nation have gotten ourselves into for many food and health contents as
well as contents for food for animals who are ultimately destined for
the table or produce products destined to be eaten. Right now, in some
situations we are painted into corners. Almost all of the world's
supply of certain supplements are made in China these days, for
instance.

Another imported food consideration which could also impact the health
of our ferrets is that the U.S. wants to sell more beef to the People's
Republic of China, but what the Chinese want in exchange from the Bush
Administration is to be able to sell their poultry, esp. chickens here
legally. Reports that I have read indicate that the conditions of some
of the farming, and more so of the slaughter and processing for poultry
are far worse than here in the U.S. (and we already have high enough
problems with bacterial levels and types, including antibiotic
resistant ones, in U.S. grown poultry). Not only are there those
increased dangers, but this would be a route that has occurred
elsewhere in the world which could bring in H5N1 bird flu to us just
as it has in other places, a risk hazard for ferrets, dogs, cats and
humans. Cats especially seem to get the current strains easily. Fun,
huh? Currently, the Bush Administration is reported as being on the
fence about possibly agreeing to that exchange of sale permissions
because big agriculture really, really, really wants that beef market.
Is that worth it to you?

China has recently sentenced the chief administrator responsible for
food and drug safety to death, but it is still highly resistant to
improving any conditions, and problems related to food and health
items from there are rampant. The problem with melamine-cyanuric acid
crystals in pet's kidneys simply made people aware of what is going on,
and to say it is the tip of the iceberg is an understatement. A huge
number (reports of at least thousands) of babies died or were so
malnourished in China from badly made formula that a number of those
who lived will pay for it the rest of their lives, thousands got a
malaria "drug" that turned out to contain no medicine but only clay,
etc. Some of the recent problems here in the U.S. with such imports
and lack of safety include:
puffer fish (including their poisonous livers) sold as monkfish so
some hospitalized after ingesting a toxin which can easily prove fatal,
undeclared sulfides in lily buds from two Chinese manufacturers, eels
loaded with banned drugs, juice with unsafe sources of coloring, and
multiple other food and health products that did not contain what they
were said to contain or contained drugs banned here as unsafe.

Even the melamine situation was not what it was depicted as being
in more than one way. Not only was there the melamine contamination
(Melamine partly breaks down into cyanuric acid in the body, and when
you combine those two with urine you get the fatal kidney crystals.)
but it turns out that the products were not even wheat gluten or rice
protein concentrate as labelled. Instead, they were far cheaper ground
whole wheat with melamine added -- cheap and dirty with a faked high
nitrogen content to make them look like they had high protein levels.
Affected by that -- to various levels -- so far in the U.S.: a number
of pet foods (See http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html )
and a number of food animals fed melamine laced foods: many chickens,
a few pigs, some farmed fish, some farmed shrimp, and some pellet
(Tembec, Uniscope, AquaBond and Aqua- Tec) fed animals including some
cattle, goats and sheep, and yet more farmed fish with those most
recent makers and importers found... For humans the safe levels appear
to be higher than for members of carnivora.

We live in a very small world, but that should not mean that we have
to accept the lowest common denominator for safety standards. Better
to have fewer but better products with more safety and less junk.

It's not that I don't think there is a value to risk. Heck, I lived for
a little while in a hammock in a jungle in Suriname, and was a wild
animal handler helping with mobility studies, and even decades later
some of my scars still show.

Some risks make sense. The stupid risks are the one we should all try
to avoid.

Personally, if the Bush Administration allows Chinese poultry to be
sold here I think we are truly potentially $cr*w*d by an incredibly
stupid risk.

What we NEED to do is not just to have tough enough regulations (which
for some things we have) but also to be sure they can be implemented by
returning funding to the FDA (just like funding removed from FEMA for
several years before Katrina hit was somewhat returned afterward, and
just like several years of removed funding to Walter Reed Hospital was
somewhat returned after conditions there were made public) and bring
the FDA back up to speed for safety inspecting with enough people once
again to handle the needs. (I also think that we need to return removed
funding to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology which is providing
essential work for our military service people, and return funding to
multiple other branches of government which have been hamstrung in
recent years so that they are set up to get to a point where shear
under-funding and under-staffing will cause them to fail.) We also need
to let the Bush Administration know that we do not want Chinese poultry
imported to the U.S. because of the associated potential needless
risks.

Here is the FDA Recall List and you can ask for alerts to be sent to
you when the FDA issues them, or you can put the site on an RSS feed
for yourself:

http://www.fda.gov/opacom/7alerts.html

My time is very limited right now, but I wanted to be sure to address
this and I know that people here can look it up further on their own
because FMLers are an intelligent and highly capable lot.

[Posted in FML 5628]