FDA WARNS THE SENATE ABOUT CHINESE IMPORTS
The latest warning that reached our ears was the recall by Fisher Price of almost a million toys that are geared to preschool age children. Recently, the FDA said that paints on the toys contain unsafe levels of lead. The toys being recalled were manufactured in China.
We all heard about the cats and dogs that died from melamine in the pet food that came from China. Then we heard that chicken feed and feed for pigs was affected as well. One FDA report said that 56,000 swine were being checked for the affects on humans of consuming swine that had eaten the feed contaminated by melamine. The FDA says that the melamine seems to pass through the swine's digestive systems and does not seem to accumulate in the meat. More than 80,000 poultry were also being held and studied at the time of that report. Feed for fish that is farmed in the U.S. was being studied as well.
Some of us heard that toothpaste, including some by Colgate, contained a chemical that had come from China. Now blogs on the Internet say that CREST may be involved as well? Since product labels may only state where something is produced, you may not know where the individual chemicals are made. In the case of the toothpaste that was warned about by the FDA, a product called diethylene glycol that is used in antifreeze had been mislabeled in China. It was exported as a chemical called 99.5% glycerin that is safe for toothpaste.
So I was searching the Internet for products that were "Made in the USA". It turns out, not many are anymore. Many of us recognized that shoes, clothing, DVDs, electronics, were being imported from China. What we did not know was our food and drug products are imported from China as well.
One link that I read today said that most candy cannot read "Made in America" because contents such as vanillin, carageenan, and gum Arabic come from China. China produces 80% of the world's wheat gluten which is used in most baked products such as cakes and cookies. They produce 80% of the sorbic acid which is a common preservative.
So I decided the go to the FDA site and see what warnings there are. On July 18, 2007, Murray M. Lumpkin, M.D., the Deputy Commissioner of International and Special Program, made a Statement before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate on "Safety of Chinese Imports: Oversight and Analysis of the Federal Response."
In Dr. Lumpkin's statement, this Committee learned that China is one of the largest producers of agricultural products. About 80% of U.S. seafood is imported, and China was the largest exporter of U.S. shrimp and catfish. So the FDA has posted warnings about delaying the release of fish products from China until they are determined to be free of certain contaminants.
Ok, so we avoid fish. But what about honey? Did you know that it often comes from China as well? Did you know that China is one of the largest exporters of canned vegetables, processed foods, fruit juice including 50% of the apple juice that the U.S. consumes? Did you know that we import garlic, pine nuts, instant coffee, and dried berries from China as well?
And finally, Dr. Lumpkin alerted the Senate to the fact that China manufactures more than 7000 medical devices that are listed for marketing in the U.S.
So I guess that it is time that I go check my glucose meter and test strips to see where they are made. I need to think twice about whether to buy the cereals that contain dried berries that I get that because they are low in carbohydrates to control my blood sugar.
Then I will try to determine if my coffee and my chocolates, my two comfort foods, and my only vices, have chemicals from China as well.
Here is another reason that we need President Gore. We need someone interested in protecting public health. We need someone that will READ the reports from the Senate about products that are a danger to the health of Americans.
Being President is "hard work". We need Gore because he is intellectually capable of this kind of "hard work."
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Considering the cost of drug
Considering the cost of drug treatment in America with prescriptions being so high the Chinese will of course look to make money by selling cheaper drugs while at the same time they can be just as dangerous as the ones made here.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
This blog was not about blaming China. It is about educating Americans. I agree with Rev. Wally that there are many chemicals that should not be allowed in foods manufactured in America. One of my favorites is talc. It is found in things like TUMS. We were told not to use it in our baby powders 25 years ago; why is it in our medicines?
There are all kinds of chemicals that are dangerous in our environment. Some hair dyes have been linked to cancers like leukemia.
The purpose of this blog is to show that our food and drugs are not being adequately regulated whether manufactured here or abroad. Only about 1% of the imports coming into the U.S. are inspected according to one article.
My point is that if you research many government agencies, they are grossly under funded.
Agencies like the EPA which are supposed to protect the environment have had their budgets cut under this Administarion.
Our President recently said that he would veto a bill for health insurance for all children.
And as we can see by the Minnesota Bridge collapse and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, our U.S. infrastructure is suffering because of the lack of funding. Pork spending is rampant. Priorities need to be made within our federal budget relative to the health and safety of Americans.
Our priorities as Americans need to change. As long as just a small group of people pay attention to our political process, we will continue to suffer the abuses of those in power.
__________________ The FDA
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The FDA is cramming experimental crap into our young people, and allowing it too be marketed all over TV. Now they are blaming China for everything.
Wake up and read on ....
Reposted from NewsTarget
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U.S. health and safety officials have found yet another brilliant way to distract the public from realizing just how dangerous U.S.-made food and drug products are: Blame China! Lately, we've seen China blamed for everything from toxic toothpaste, deadly dog food, contaminated ginger and now lead-based paints in Mattel toys.
Of course, all the accusations are true. China's food and herbal products are so routinely contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals that high-quality supplement formulators in the United States refuse to buy products from China anymore. But the really clever part in all this is that blaming China prevents people from paying attention to the dangerous ingredients openly allowed in the U.S. food supply by the FDA.
Specifically, the FDA currently allows known cancer-causing chemicals to be widely used in both foods and drugs. Sodium nitrite, for example, has been irrefutably shown to cause pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, leukemia and brain tumors in children, and yet the FDA looks the other way while processed meat manufacturers continue to add sodium nitrite to meat products sold throughout the country.
What about all the children eating hot dogs and getting brain tumors from the highly carcinogenic nitrosamines created by eating such foods? No problem: Blame China! How about all the infants suffering birth defects from the nutritional deficiencies caused by their mothers chowing down refined grains, hydrogenated oils and nutrient-depleted procesed foods? No problem: Blame China! If you're a U.S. regulatory body and you're looking for an easy way out of owning up to actual responsibility, just play the China card. Invoke the blame game!
Advocating the chemical intoxication of the American people
The FDA also allows all kinds of toxic chemicals to be used in over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Everything from cough syrups to pain pills seems to be openly contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals ranging from synthetic sweeteners to petrochemical-derived coloring chemicals. You can hardly pick up an over-the-counter medication at a convenience store without seeing some scary chemical on the ingredients list.
The USDA, meanwhile, openly allows U.S. farmers to inject cattle with hormones and antibiotics that are banned in most other countries, and the agency even has an open policy of allowing U.S. cattle to be fed chicken poop, roadkill, euthanized pets, and until recently, brain and spinal fluids from other dead, diseased cows. So what happens when consumers eating this stuff suffer bizarre neurological disorders like the human form of mad cow disease? Blame China!
In fact, the U.S. food supply is a toxic brew of synthetic chemicals and artificially modified molecules that are extremely harmful to human health. The list of such ingredients that should be banned from the food supply -- but won't be -- include MSG, processed sodium, refined white sugar, refined white flour, aspartame, saccharin, hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, chemical preservatives, color fixer chemicals and homogenized dairy fats (which cause heart disease). By screaming "China!" to the U.S. press and pointing the finger at dangerous Chinese-made products, the Food and Drug Administration diverts scrutiny from its own lousy lack of meaningful food safety enforcement with U.S. manufacturers.
The silent treatment
U.S. authorities, of course, remain silent about the deadly chemicals openly allowed in the U.S. food supply. Except for a few radical nutritionists like myself and other independent writers, practially nobody is warning the U.S. public over the dangers of sodium nitrite, MSG, aspartame and fluoride. It took years just to get consensus on the fact that trans fatty acids are dangerous to health, and even then, the FDA still refuses to ban them from the food supply, kow-towing to the interests of giant food corporations who insist they need hydrogenated oils to ensure longer shelf life for their food products (which guantees more profits).
There is currently no effort underway to ban known cancer-causing chemicals from the food supply, even when the science is very clear about the damage such chemicals are causing to the U.S. public. Sodium nitrite is a clear example of a toxic ingredient that has no real use other than turning dead meats a pretty pink color, and yet neither the FDA nor USDA have taken any interest in attempting to ban this ingredient from foods.
Why China should ban most U.S. processed foods?
Technically, China should ban all processed meat imports from the United States, given that such meats contain detectable levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the form of sodium nitrite (and MSG, usually). If the world were really concerned about food safety, they would ban virtually all common food items made in the USA: Beef, hamburgers, processed meats, sugary sweets, diet sodas, frozen dinners and much more. The USA is the largest exporter of death and disease in the entire world. We sell more disease-promoting crap than anyone, and every country that adopts the U.S. diet sees an immediate and rapid decline in the health of its population.
You see, the "Blame China" campaign isn't really about protecting U.S. consumers from dangerous products. It's about shifting blame from the U.S. to some foreign country and making it appear that all food safety problems are somebody else's fault. At the same time, it creates the illusion that U.S. regulators are being vigilant in protecting our borders from dangerous products being shipped in from overseas. So it's a two-fer: Deflect blame, and appear stoic. Too bad it has nothing to do with reality.
As usual, the real problems in America are found within. The most dangerous foods, drugs and pet foods are all made right here in America, using FDA-approved toxic substances that are so deadly to the public they should be considered a form of chemical warfare. Antibacterial soaps, for example, are based on a nerve-killing chemical closely related to Agent Orange. Fluoride-enriched water products use a chemical form of fluoride considered a toxic waste from the fertilizer processing industry, and the widespread use of genetically modified corn in the food supply exposes virtually the entire population to alarming levels of chemical pesticides unleashed during digestion.
My CounterThink cartoon, the Food Terrorists, explains this in more detail.
But that's not all: Recently, the CRN (Council for Responsible Nutrition) suggested that functional foods currently being sold in the United States might have too much nutrition and should be strictly regulated so they don't provide too much funtional nourishment to consumers. This is part of the global effort to actually reduce the nutritional impact of food and unleash widespread nutritional deficiencies that will result in trillions of dollars in new profits for pharmaceutical companies. (CODEX is also part of this same effort to neutralize the nutrition in the food supply.)
So while the U.S. allows the chemical contamination of its foods and pushes for upper limits on meaningful nutrition, it successfully distracts the whole nation (especially the press) from the relevant issues by pointing at China and claiming China is the source of all our food safety problems.
Sleight of hand works for governments, too.
Magicians use the same trick. Create a distraction, and while the audience is looking in that direction, you pull a fast one on the cards palmed in your other hand. Except in this case, U.S. food safety regulators aren't playing with cards; they're playing with the lives of the American people. And so far, they're losing big time: Americans are now the least healthy people in the world among industrialized nations. We suffer from more cancer, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart disease, violent behavior and sheer madness than any population in the world, and you can't blame China for all that.
The real problem, it turns out, is found inside our own borders. The real problem is the corporations and regulators that run America today and who unilaterally refuse to do anything meaningful to protect the lives and health of U.S. consumers. U.S. food companies put poisons right into the foods; cities drip poisonous fluoride into the water supply; pharmacies hand out poisonous medications to 40% of the population; chemical companies sell poisonous detergents, pesticides, fabric softeners, soaps and personal care products to virtually every household in America. And don't even get me started about cosmetics companies, pet food companies and infant formula manufacturers.
Blame China? Give me a break. How about blaming the corrupt, criminally-minded FDA bureaucrats who have utterly surrendered their duties to profiteering corporations fixated solely on exploiting American consumers for maximum profits?
All this doesn't mean China's foods are any safer. They're not. But U.S. foods, drugs and personal care products are just as toxic. Pick up a piece of beef jerky at any grocery store, and you'll find a combination of multiple cancer causing ingredients in a single product: Sodium nitrite, monosodium glutamate and even artificial colors (not to mention the toxic animal fat sources used to make beef jerky).
Where is the FDA when it comes to protecting Americans from American companies?
The unstated double standard is that American foods are safe merely by the fact that they are made in America. But the only real difference between U.S. foods and Chinese foods is that the China-made ingredients will kill you faster... too fast for you to be profitable treated by pharmaceuticals.
American-made foods will kill you slowly, developing symptoms over a period of decades and stringing you along just enough to make sure you become a lifelong customer of Big Pharma. There's nothing like high-fructose corn syrup to keep a diabetic in constant need of medication. This fact, combined with the fact that the American Diabetes Association continues to recommend things like ice cream to diabetics (as long as they regulate their blood sugar with medication!), shows you just how important it is for corporate America to keep the American population just sick enough to need medication, but not so sick that they all keel over and die.
The real problem with China's toxic ingredients, you see, is that they kill Americans too quickly, thereby depriving Big Pharma of a lifetime of revenue treating some sick person's symptoms with extremely profitable patented medications. This is not appreciated in America because it competes with our own home-grown poisoning method that prefers to poison consumer more slowly, bilking them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in monopoly priced medications and hopefully killing them off right before Medicare or social security might kick in.
So the next time some ignorant bureaucrat (or friend, or family member) mentions to you how dangerous China's food products are, just ask them these simple questions:
1) Why does the FDA allow leukemia-causing chemicals to be added to hot dogs that are consumed by children? (Sodium nitrite)
2) Why does the FDA allows nerve-damaging monosodium glutamate chemicals (and derivatives) to be used in baby food?
3) Why does the Girl Scouts continue to make its famous cookies with partially-hydrogenated oils known to contribute to essential fatty acid deficiencies in infants?
4) Why is aspartame still allowed in the food supply at all? (An excotitoxin)
5) Why is mercury still tolerated in American dental work (and, in fact, still pushed by the American Dental Association!) when mercury ingestion is so dangerous to human health?
6) Why do vaccination policies still allow the mass injection of babies with methyl mercury, which has been clearly linked to autism and autoimmune disorders?
7) Why are extremely toxic, cancer-causing chemicals openly allowed to be used in skin care products, perfumes and personal care formulas sold throughout America?
8) Why are popular laundry products still allowed to be sold in the U.S. when they contain numerous cancer-causing chemicals that get embedded in the fibers of clothing and are easily absorbed through the skin?
9) Why do U.S. health authorities not merely tolerate, but actually encourage the mass drugging of schoolchildren with amphetamine drugs? (Ritalin, Adderall, etc.)
The answer, of course, is: Blame China! All our health problems are obviously China's fault, and anyone who suggests the U.S. is to blame for its own diseased population is obviously unpatriotic.
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Reverend Wally
"Truth"
the situation is really sickening
There is a guy that has been fighting this cause for years, his name is Kevin Trudeau, and his book "NATURAL CURES "THEY" DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT" he puts a lid off an unbelievable nest of deception and double-standards concerning general health and individual health between the pharmaceutical industry and the Federal Government.
Another point about the real cause of what is going on with China. Why so many things are made in China? Meanwhile Corporate America closing so many factories here. They have invested heavily in China for cheap labor and where there are not laws, and who’s is to know where all these material come from. What's going on is that China has become a prostitute for world corporations. Well, it was reassuring to see the news that China executed the guy that was in charged of their FDA equivalent, I’m not sure of the department name, but I am sure they had a scapegoat head rolling. Now the poor Chinese people are slaves, it would be naïve to think the majority of Chinese people will benefit.