Contaminated food from China in the human foodchain

[Damocles]

So an american company doing business in China should have someone there to read Chinese. Excuses, excuses....

There is no American company in China to blame it on in this case. They packaged it, and it was supposed to be inspected by the Chinese Gov't as usual for food product, but they printed on the package for out-process that it was "non-food".

They either repackaged after that or had it printed in English differently, by the time it reached here it was marked "non-human" food product. The first time it was touched by an American would be when they got the product at the dock.

Got it? Not the US company's fault in this case. I'm sure it could be in the future, but not in this case.

Why are you getting so upset about a hypothetical?

 

[uscitizen]

Well change the word "in" to "with". my bad. Since you took off on that track I ignored the rest of your post since it was based on that.

It is only good business sense to be able to read Chinese if you are doing business WITH them.

 

[Damocles]

Well change the word "in" to "with". my bad. Since you took off on that track I ignored the rest of your post since it was based on that.

It is only good business sense to be able to read Chinese if you are doing business WITH them.

It really depends on whether or not they repackaged or if it was marked differently in both languages. You wouldn't even have to be able to speak it to recognize the different Kanji...

 

[uscitizen]

Imoport/export agencies on both ends should be able to read both languages....
Of course it is under homeland securities control now so they probably can't even read english on this end.
And the US companies warehouse and shipping employees could only read Mexican...

 

[Thorn]

This fairly comprehensive article appeared today on msnbc.com:

Tainted feed not harmful to humans
Eating meat contaminated with melamine not harmful
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:48 a.m. CT May 7, 2007
WASHINGTON - Consumers face little risk from eating pork, chicken and eggs from farm animals that ate feed mixed with pet food scraps contaminated by an industrial chemical, government scientists said Monday.

Mixing in material contaminated at low levels diluted it such that humans who eat the animals won’t be harmed, the scientists said.

“We literally found that the dilution is so minute, in fact in some cases you can’t even test and find melamine any more in that product,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in Chicago, speaking to the Organic Trade Association.

The government also recommended lifting holds placed on some pigs and chickens after their feed tested negative for the chemical, melamine, and related compounds. Those animals may be slaughtered and enter the food supply, the Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration said.

Other animals, including some that ate feed that has tested positive for contamination, are likely to be held for another week pending completion of an assessment of the overall risk of the chemicals to animal health.

Melamine, used to make plastics, and the related compounds contaminated pet food that either sickened or killed an unknown number of dogs and cats. Scraps left over from the manufacture of that dog and cat food was sold for use in animal feed before the pet food was known to be tainted and recalled from store shelves.

Holds were placed on hogs and poultry while officials studied the extent of the problem as well as its potential risk to both human and animal health.

Since the pet food scraps made up only a small amount of the rations fed the farm animals, they appear to have been exposed to smaller amounts of melamine than was the case with cats and dogs, officials said. Even pigs and chickens known to have eaten contaminated feed appear to be healthy, the USDA and FDA said.


For people who ate large amounts of contaminated pork, chicken and eggs, they likely would be exposed to contamination at levels 18,000 to 30,000 times lower than that considered safe.

Even under the most extreme scenario, the potential human exposure to melamine was well below any level of public health concern, the USDA and FDA said. In that worst-case scenario, government scientists assumed all the solid food a person ate in a day was contaminated with melamine at levels seen in animals fed contaminated feed; that potential exposure was still about 2,500 times lower than the dose considered safe.

Since March 16, more than 100 brands of pet food have been recalled because they were contaminated with melamine.[/COLOR]
This should help to put at least some concerns to rest.

 

[uscitizen]

Oh it puts some concerns to rest. but I also read that the CDC and such had no data on acceptable levels of Melamine in humans nor knew what it would do to us in any concentrations.
I feel this release is probably correct but politically motivated.

 

[Care4all]

Your right, and hopefully not your funeral.
The CDC said they did not have any data at all how melamine effects humans. Is it a carcenogen ? No one knows anything on that subject.

melamine is a very hard plastic used in kitchen cabinets and furniture, i believe?

and i don't think it disipates in the animal/ thus us, that easily...

we should do some random testing.

the chickens and pigs didn't die from ingestion but the dogs and cats did... it obviously affects animals differently!

we need import tax to cover the cost of extra fda to cover food imports imo...

 

[uscitizen]

The kidneys fail first. Then the central nervous system begins to misfire. Paralysis spreads, making breathing difficult, then often impossible without assistance. In the end, most victims die.

Chemical country The Taixing countryside in eastern China, near the Yangtze Delta. Forty-six barrels of toxic syrup followed a path from a factory in the nearby small town of Hengxiang to Panama.

Many of them are children, poisoned at the hands of their unsuspecting parents.

The syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in some antifreeze.

It is also a killer. And the deaths, if not intentional, are often no accident.

Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine — cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs — a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products.

Toxic syrup has figured in at least eight mass poisonings around the world in the past two decades. Researchers estimate that thousands have died. In many cases, the precise origin of the poison has never been determined. But records and interviews show that in three of the last four cases it was made in China, a major source of counterfeit drugs.

Panama is the most recent victim. Last year, government officials there unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine — with devastating results. Families have reported 365 deaths from the poison, 100 of which have been confirmed so far. With the onset of the rainy season, investigators are racing to exhume as many potential victims as possible before bodies decompose even more.

Panama’s death toll leads directly to Chinese companies that made and exported the poison as 99.5 percent pure glycerin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/world/americas/06poison.html?em&ex=1178683200&en=2ea28ff62cbc7c0f&ei=5087%0A

Yep capitalism is doing well in China.

 

[Litmus]

But all of it was processed gluten. I did read the article. "Doesn't prove that we have it in our system" doesn't prove that it iss and that we should now be panicking. In fact, that there is no evidence that it did get into the human food is an excellent sign and far more than supposition. These people are looking for it diligently.

Once again, the FDA people who are dealing with this daily have more of a handle on this than supposition and fear. There is no reason to fear your refrigerator at this time.

right. Everybody just go vote your shares. Everything will be fine. The jews are in control.

I wonder if poison eating will be an agenda item for any corporate shareholder votes this year.

 

[Damocles]

right. Everybody just go vote your shares. Everything will be fine. The jews are in control.

I wonder if poison eating will be an agenda item for any corporate shareholder votes this year.

The jews control China too? They are truly amazing people. Voting shares can be a fix for the coin-operated government, not for everything. This is a disignenuous exaggeration of my position on why people should vote their shares.

 

[Litmus]

The jews control China too? They are truly amazing people. Voting shares can be a fix for the coin-operated government, not for everything. This is a disignenuous exaggeration of my position on why people should vote their shares.

They get all bent ouf of shape if anyone cricizes any premise of the globalization movement.



You think voting shares is a more viable solution to reigning in corporations than is government intervention. That is disingenious usage of the word "fix".

 

[Damocles]

They get all bent ouf of shape if anyone cricizes any premise of the globalization movement.



You think voting shares is a more viable solution to reigning in corporations than is government intervention. That is disingenious usage of the word "fix".

No, I think it is a fix specifically for their donating to the candidates of the government and thus giving them greater access than a regular citizen in creating legislation.

If you vote out the people that decide to donate that cash every time, you will find that those who later want to keep their jobs will stop donating. But heck, I am speaking to somebody who doesn't believe that people who want to keep their jobs will change their actions to keep them.

 

[Litmus]

No, I think it is a fix specifically for their donating to the candidates of the government and thus giving them greater access than a regular citizen in creating legislation.

If you vote out the people that decide to donate that cash every time, you will find that those who later want to keep their jobs will stop donating.

Well, I don't. Its not that Im against voting shares, it's just not sufficient to protect americans from the eternal greed of multinationals who admittedly have no allegiance to man or kind.

 

[Damocles]

Well, I don't. Its not that Im against voting shares, it's just not sufficient to protect americans from the eternal greed of multinationals who admittedly have no allegiance to man or kind.

This would be like saying those in our government won't change actions to gain votes. They will. If enough people require it, they will change their position to keep their job, the same will happen with the board on many corporations. To keep their job they will either change or will be replaced with those who will follow the proscription of the voters.

It can be specifically a fix for the unprecedented access they get to the government, not for every function, as they are required by law to "do what is best for the corporation".

 

[Litmus]

This would be like saying those in our government won't change actions to gain votes. They will. If enough people require it, they will change their position to keep their job, the same will happen with the board on many corporations. To keep their job they will either change or will be replaced with those who will follow the proscription of the voters.

It can be specifically a fix for the unprecedented access they get to the government, not for every function, as they are required by law to "do what is best for the corporation".

Exactly. And what is best for a coporation is not always best for americans in general. The goals are not the same, nor do I expect shareholders to vote against their profit margin. government is intended as a moral framework around the conduct of business. the current state of things is a perversion.