Posted on 06/06/2007 12:32:22 AM PDT by bd476
Toothless border control
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
In April, tainted wheat gluten from China turned up in pet food that killed hundreds of dogs and cats in the United States and Canada. Last week, Chinese imports threatened the health of humans.
The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers about toothpaste from China - some of it sold in Miami - that is contaminated with a chemical used in antifreeze. The FDA said the products had a "low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury." The United States thus becomes the seventh country to find tainted Chinese toothpaste in stores this year. The diethylene glycol scientists detected was an inexpensive but dangerous substitute for glycerin, which is commonly used as a thickener.
The pet food and the toothpaste came through the same holes in a porous system of inspection and regulation. The government has only a small fraction of the inspectors it needs to effectively screen what comes into the United States. At the other end of the supply line, in China and many other countries with booming export business, safeguards and regulatory standards are lax or nonexistent. There is a constant temptation to cut corners and turn fast profits.
Even when U.S. inspectors catch problems and reject foreign shipments, producers often will keep sending their products until they find their way into the country. According to the FDA, inspectors will be able to sample only about 20,000 of the 13''million food products that come into the United States this year. What deterrent is there to prevent unscrupulous or incompetent producers from exploiting an overmatched system?
Globalization opened not only markets but large cracks in the protective shield around U.S. consumers. China alone will export close to $3 billion worth of food into the U.S. this year. Congress, caught up in debate over Iraq and immigration reform, has no plans to increase the ranks of FDA inspectors anytime soon. But if securing the borders against illegal immigrants matters, so does securing the borders against dangerous imports.
The American worker justifiably worries that the outsourcing of domestic jobs undercuts the idea that unrestricted trade is good for the country. The insourcing of foreign products is causing the American buyer not only to beware but to be downright worried.
Oops! At first I thought this was a story describing the skills of Monica Lewinsky.
Oh yeah, it only killed dogs. Of course we don’t make any wheat gluten for human consumption in this country anymore, so that gluten used for people food came from?....Class? ...Bueller? Anyone?
Nothing to see folks, move along, pay your taxes, watch American Idol, keep moving, keep moving...
There are greedy executives, your fellow citizens, busyly importing this toxic garbage just to make a few more $$$$$’s. They belong in jail.
We are doing this to ourselves.
That’s odd, I thought lax or nonexistant regulatory controls and standards were a good thing.
I have begun to studiously avoid consuming anything not made/grown in the USA. Especially stuff from China. Yuck!
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