Another wrinkle in the great Chinese food scandal
The new “China Syndrome,” part one
You may remember the hit 1979 movie called “The China Syndrome,” starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas. It was about cover-ups of safety violations at an American nuclear power plant.
Ironically, the movie was released just days before the real-life partial meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In the film, the phrase “china syndrome” referred not to anything as insidious as faulty Chinese materials the reactor core was built from, but to the facetious notion that, should a “total meltdown” occur, the plant would have burned clear through the Earth to China. (And, actually, the plant responded exactly as programmed and shut down with no injuries at all – but you know Hollywood.) But as usual, I digress
Today, there’s a different deadly threat to the safety of American citizens that really DOES center on China: The flow of tainted foodstuffs and other ingestible products for both animal and people.
Over the last 6 weeks, I’ve made you aware of the details behind the ongoing scandal involving toxic melamine (a chemical used in fertilizer and in plastics manufacturing) that had been intentionally added to the raw ingredients used in hundreds of varieties of dry pet foods to artificially boost protein readings on government tests.
To recap, these tainted ingredients were imported from Chinese suppliers, and have resulted in not only massive recalling of pet foods (and the death or sickening of tens of thousands of pets) – but also the quarantine and likely destruction of a large number of melamine-contaminated hogs and chickens earmarked for human consumption. Some of these already found their way into the American food marketplace, however
Now, there’s another threat making the news from the Far East: Tainted toothpaste.
According to a recent Associated Press article, the U.S Food and Drug Administration is advising Americans against the use of dentifrices made in China. Apparently, officials are especially concerned about toothpastes sold at “dollar stores” and other bargain retail outlets
Why? Because someone in the Land of Chow Mien had the bright idea of adding the base ingredient from ANTI-FREEZE to it.
The FDA claims that none of this toxic substance – called di-ethylene glycol (DEG) – should be present in toothpastes of any type. Yet according to sources used for the AP article, some Chinese brands examined have contained as much as 3-4% OF THEIR TOTAL WEIGHT in harmful DEG.
Like I mentioned a second ago, DEG is used as an industrial coolant and anti-overheating agent. It is also present in some varieties of brake and other hydraulic fluids. It’s also used as a solvent for many resins, dyes, oils, and even nitrocellulose (explosives)
Sounds yummy, doesn’t it? And in case you’re wondering, it isn’t even good for teeth – dentifrice makers use it to sweeten and thicken toothpastes.
Di-ethylene glycol is banned by the FDA in foods or drugs in the United States. The agency is especially concerned with about chronic exposure to DEG among children, or among those with Kidney problems.
At the time of this writing, there are no credible estimates of how much DEG-laced Chinese toothpaste has been sold, bought, or used by Americans – or for how long
And in the next Daily Dose, I’ll clue you in to the reasons why this is so scary.
