Poisons From China Discovered In Human Medicine, Food

Chinese poisons find their way into human medicines and food.Poisons From China Discovered In Human Medicine, FoodBy Cliff Montgomery – May 9th, 2007A Chinese factory created a bogus chemical which killed dozens of people in Panama after it was used in human medications, according to the New York Times.The Times has reported that the poison was initially sold by Chinese businesses which exported it as 99.5 percent pure glycerin. The chemical’s point of origin was then clouded as middlemen in Spain and Panama removed the names of their suppliers from shipping documents–a practice used by distributors to keep you and me from asking pesky questions about reliability.Panama’s state health agency used the poison to produce medicines, not knowing that it was diethylene glycol–a chemical cousin of antifreeze which any mechanic knows can cause kidney and nerve damage if ingested.The Times added that investigators in four countries identified Taixing Glycerine Factory as the poison maker. That company’s analysis certificate stated the shipment was 99.5 percent pure, according to the Times.The sale of the chemical was mediated by a unit of a state-owned business in Beijing, the paper said. From there, it proceeded to a distributor in Barcelona, Spain, then on to a dealer in Panama.The Times quoted an unidentified Chinese drug official who said investigators tested the Taixing Glycerine Factory’s product and discovered it contained no glycerine. A spokeswoman for the drug agency claimed the company had not broken any laws.Wan Qigang, the factory’s lawyer, told the Times last year that the business made only industrial-grade glycerin. But recently the company has been advertising 99.5 percent pure glycerine on the Internet, the Times reported. When the Internet ads were mentioned Wan declined to answer further questions, the paper stated.Concerns over the safety of Chinese imports jumped in the U.S. after pet food containing an  ingredient from China was found to be contaminated with another industrial chemical, melamine.China has recently banned the use of melamine–a chemical normally used to make plastics and fertilizer– as an ingredient in vegetable proteins for export or domestic food use. On Thursday, police officials in eastern China reported that they had arrested the general manager of one of the two Chinese businesses accused of selling wheat gluten tainted with melamine to pet-food suppliers in the United States.The contaminated wheat gluten has killed or made ill an unknown number of dogs and cats, leading to the recall of more than 100 brands of pet food.And if you think that’s something…thanks to this huge pet-food recall and worries about contamination in everything from overseas drugs to its own food supply, China admitted Friday that it has begun nationwide inspections of wheat gluten to discover if it has been contaminated with poisons, according to the state-controlled Xinhua press agency.A spokesman for the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the examinations began Monday, with regulators looking for a chemical used in rat poison as well as melamine.According to Xinhua, the inspections are being conducted to track down both melamine and aminopterin, a rat poison that was initially cited in the United States as the possible poison causing death in some pets. But regulators have not yet confirmed that aminopterin was present in the poisoned pet food.The statement, released during the week-long May holiday period, is the latest indication that China is offering some cooperation with U.S. investigators as they determine how Chinese melamine caused one of the biggest pet-food recalls in U.S. history.These actions come weeks after the Chinese government at first denied having shipped any wheat gluten to America, and then rather inconsistently claimed that any melamine in the wheat gluten was not lethal enough to have caused great harm to pets.The gluten inspections are taking place just as investigators from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are visiting China, in hopes of discovering how and why poison-tainted products were sold to some of the world’s largest pet-food makers.”Sampling and examination are under way,” a Chinese regulation spokesman told Xinhua on Friday.”We will announce the results as soon as the investigation is completed,” the spokesman added.The search for melamine contamination in China could be an huge undertaking, as Chinese animal feed producers have acknowledged in interviews that they have been cheating customers for years by adding the poison to artificially increase protein readings.In recent weeks, several chemical companies, melamine traders and animal feed producers have further admitted that the mixing of the poison melamine into food and feed additives is a common occurrence in China.Two Chinese companies are said to have been source of all the melamine-contaminated protein which probably tainted pet food ingredients in the United States. Both companies are centered in eastern China, close to top wheat-growing areas that are also centers for the production of melamine.