According to an article published in the New York Times today, there was a similar incident of Chinese-made diethylene glycol (DEG), masquerading as its more expensive chemical cousin glycerin nearly a decade ago.
This incident, which killed dozens of children in Haiti in October of 1997, was traced back to a company in China – with little help from the Chinese government, which ignored the US FDA requests to find the manufacturer and either lost or destroyed business records.
By the time the FDA agent found the factory in China, the plant had already shut down and moved on.
Last month it happened again in Panama, this time killing at least 100 peopled as Chinese toothpaste containing the dangerous chemical DEG was imported into the country to save Chinese manufacturers money on glycerin costs.
According to the New York Times article, “there have been at least five other mass poisonings involving the mislabeled chemical in the past two decades — in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Argentina and twice in India.”
I would like to ask all of the politicians running on the platform of “border control” and “homeland security” what they plan to do about this issue, and how they plan to keep it from happening again. Maybe one of them would like to answer in the next Presidential debate?
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