Made in China - Choose your Poison
China's companies have poisoned many people. Let us count the ways.
China is a polluted nightmare and the government doesn't care.
From Spiegel Magazine
China is a big country, a future superpower. Its leaders, accountable only to themselves,
don't care for economic or environmental advice. They set their own path.
But each year, each month, almost every week, China experiences some sort of major
environmental catastrophe. The mess spreads across the land, in its waterways and the air.
And far too often, the rest of the world gets sprinkled with some of it too.
China exports fake ingredients that kill people and the government doesn't care.
From The New York Times
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.
[snip]
When at least 88 children died in Haiti a decade ago, F.D.A. investigators traced the poison
to the Manchurian city of Dalian, but their attempts to visit the suspected manufacturer were
repeatedly blocked by Chinese officials, according to internal State Department records.
Permission was granted more than a year later, but by then the plant had moved and its
records had been destroyed.
“Chinese officials we contacted on this matter were all reluctant to become involved,” the
American Embassy in Beijing wrote in a confidential cable. “We cannot be optimistic about
our chances for success in tracking down the other possible glycerine shipments.”
Chinese companies paralyze children with contaminated vaccines and the government doesn't care.
From Reuters via Topix
Cradled in her mother's arms, tiny Liang Jiayi stares blankly. Foam begins to flow from her
mouth and her lifeless body suddenly goes into a spasm.
"She's cramping," her father Liang Yongli cries out as he and his wife massage the
contorted limbs of the five-year-old.
Jiayi used to be lively and mischievous but everything changed when she was given a
vaccine shot against Japanese encephalitis B in August 2003 in a government hospital near
her home in Jiangmen, in China's southern Guangdong province.
[snip]
"Some people may have very poor immunity or genetic problems ... and on rare occasions,
(vaccines containing live) attenuated virus may cause an actual infection," he said.
"But it's hard to say if the girl suffered from such a complication. Especially in rural parts of
China, there are (reports of) very bad, contaminated vaccines."
Liang knows of at least six other children in Jiangmen who were left paralyzed after such
vaccinations and he cycled 6,000 km (4,000 miles) from his home to Beijing in May 2004 to
plead for help.
"I filled out many forms but there has been no reply even though they promised me one in
two months. An official said it was my bad luck and that this is my destiny," said Liang.
Asked about these cases in Jiangmen, there was no immediate response from China's
Health Ministry.
Now, would anyone in their right mind want an H5N1 vaccine made in China? How much you want to bet that Dr. Chan, Director-General of the WHO, is working on a deal where the first world pays China to make pandemic vaccine for the third world? Any takers?
Saturday, May 19, 2007