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FUNTASTIC is recalling about 26,000 sets of "Hillbilly Teeth." The gray surface paint on the teeth contains excessive levels of lead, violating the federal lead paint standard. This recall involves a 2-pack fake Hillbilly Teeth with item # 2657. The item number is printed on the packaging. The gums are brown and the teeth are yellow. The false teeth were sold at grocery, drug, convenience, and mass retailers nationwide from March 2005 through March 2008 for about $2. They were made in China. Consumers should immediately take the recalled toy away from children and contact FUNTASTIC for information on receiving...

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games. Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around. Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city. The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of...

(SEOUL) - South Korea closed schools on Monday and its factories producing memory chips stepped up safeguards, as a choking pall of sand mixed with toxic dust from China covered most of the country and other parts of Asia. The annual "yellow dust" spring storms, which originate in China's Gobi Desert before sweeping south to envelop the Korean peninsula and parts of Japan, are blamed for scores of deaths and billions of dollars in damage every year in South Korea. It issued a yellow dust warning at the weekend. On Monday, school districts in southeastern regions urged parents to keep...

When ordering seafood, many of Russell Hohnerlein's customers have the same question: Where did it come from? Hohnerlein, manager of The 4th of May at 444 Ocean Blvd, St. Simons Island, never has to check a daily serve list to answer. "All our seafood is local. Always," he said. Should Sen. Ronnie Chance, R- Fayette, have his way, Hohnerlein won't have to field this question much longer. The answer will be visible to the eye – right there on the menu. Senate Bill 533, introduced by Chance Wednesday, would require restaurant menus to carry a label on all seafood items...

WASHINGTON – While China continues to promise to impose higher safety standards on exports, a WND study shows two of every three products recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission last year were Chinese imports – with an upward trend of defective, unsafe products found in every quarter of 2007. The CPSC recalled a total of 447 products for safety concerns last year. Of those, 298 were manufactured in China. Only 62 were made in the USA. The rest were made in other countries. In 2006, the CPSC recalled a total of 467 kinds of products – 221 of which...

China investigates exporter of 'contaminated eel' (Xinhua) Updated: 2008-02-22 14:41 BEIJING -- China and the Republic of Korea are to jointly investigate how Chinese frozen eel exports came to contain carcinogenic malachite green, a fungicide banned in food production in China, according to a statement from China's quality watchdog on Friday. Chinese investigators had found no information about the producer, identified by the Republic of Korea media as Jiangxi Yichun Eel Industry Development Co. Ltd, said the statement from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ). The producer had not registered with China's import and export inspection...

Last Updated: Thursday, 21 February 2008, 11:21 GMT US to take own food to Olympics By James Reynolds BBC News, Beijing China's Olympic food China has expressed regret that the US has decided not to trust its food during this summer's Olympic Games. The US delegation has said it is planning to bring its own food for American athletes. At a news conference in Beijing, a senior official, Kang Yi, said it was a pity that the US had apparently decided not to trust China's food. Ms Kang insisted that the food served to athletes at the Olympics would exceed...

China has expressed regret that the US has decided not to trust its food during this summer's Olympic Games. The US delegation has said it is planning to bring its own food for American athletes. At a news conference in Beijing, a senior official, Kang Yi, said it was a pity that the US had apparently decided not to trust China's food. Ms Kang insisted that the food served to athletes at the Olympics would exceed international health standards. For China, a good Olympic Games means cheering spectators, record-breaking performances and athletes and fans all sitting down to enjoy some...

The blood thinner drug Heparin has been put on hold by Baxter, as the multiple-dose vials were found to cause severe reactions in patients. Patients were seen having severe reactions to the drug Heparin which include vomiting, dropping blood pressure to the point where they can go into shock, and more. The FDA stated that they were going to review Heparin further. There have been four reported deaths from Heparin in the multi-dose vials thus far. The FDA stated that the only issues came with the high dose vials of Heparin. The lower dose Heparin patients did not see nearly...

Several months ago when the news broke about poisonous pet food and lead-laden toys from China, I asked my local pharmacy to give me a letter stating it is not selling me any prescription drugs imported from China. The reply was, "We don't buy any drugs from China." I said, "I know you don't, but I want you to check with your suppliers and verify that they don't buy from China." That request was met by thunderous silence. Now we know why. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 80 percent of the drug substances used by U.S. manufacturers to...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US grocery chain Trader Joe's said Monday it would stop selling food imported from China due to customers' concerns about the products' safety. "Our customers have voiced concerns about products from this region and we have listened," Trader Joe's spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki said in a statement. "All single ingredient food items sourced from mainland China are scheduled to be out of our stores by April 1," she said. "We will continue to source products from other regions until our customers feel as confident as we do about the quality and safety of Chinese products."

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken — half of a breast — that measured 14 inches. “Enough to feed a family of eight,” said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who has traveled to China to handle food-related issues. “We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.” In preparing to take a delegation of more than 600 athletes to the...

BEIJING — A huge state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company that exports to dozens of countries, including the United States, is at the center of a nationwide drug scandal after nearly 200 Chinese cancer patients were paralyzed or otherwise harmed last summer by contaminated leukemia drugs. Chinese drug regulators have accused the manufacturer of the tainted drugs of a cover-up and have closed the factory that produced them. In December, China’s Food and Drug Administration said that the Shanghai police had begun a criminal investigation and that two officials, including the head of the plant, had been detained. The drug maker, Shanghai...

(FUQING, China) — Here in southern China, beneath the looming mountains of Fujian Province, lie dozens of enormous ponds filled with murky brown water and teeming with eels, shrimp and tilapia, much of it destined for markets in Japan and the West. Fuqing is one of the centers of a booming industry that over two decades has transformed this country into the biggest producer and exporter of seafood in the world, and the fastest-growing supplier to the United States. But that growth is threatened by the two most glaring environmental weaknesses in China: acute water shortages and water supplies contaminated...

Dollar Tree announced Thursday the recall of about 300,000 toys. (A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Dollar General as an affected retailer.) They include bead and wire toys for babies and Speed Race Pull Back and Go Action cars. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said that the toys, which were made in China, have high levels of lead that violate federal paint standards. There were no reports of injuries. One group of toys has colored beads that slide on wires attached to a natural wood platform. They have item number 903419 and date code 71 printed on...

(BEIJING)--The medicine cabinet in the average U.S. home is filling with drugs made in China, and some experts say that could be a prescription for trouble. China’s booming pharmaceutical industry has doubled exports to the United States in the past five years, undercutting competitors and making American consumers reliant on the safety of Chinese factories and captive to any disruptions in Sino-U.S. commerce. It might seem like merely a trade issue. But industry experts in Europe and the United States say that national security concerns are edging into the debate. Consider this scenario: If a major anthrax attack were to...

(KUNMING) -- Forensic doctors and police have found that four pupils in southwest China's Yunnan province died Monday morning from a kind of highly toxic rat poison, sources with the provincial public security department said Saturday. The four students, three girls and a boy, were from Lehong township of Ludian county. They developed symptoms of poisoning and died after arriving at school between 8:30 to 9 a.m. Monday, according to Ma Jilin, Communist Party chief of Ludian county. Autopsy report said the four had eaten dry instant noodles and crackling which could have been put in the wrapping bags of...

One of China's best-known food companies has halted exports of all tinned food, after toxic chemicals were found in canned meat products. Food safety officials in Hong Kong have discovered a banned antibiotic, nitrofurans, in tins of Maling brand pork luncheon meat and pork ribs. It is the latest scare over the safety of Chinese exports. This year there have been massive recalls of toys, tyres and food products from the American market. The government in Beijing has come under increasing pressure to regulate the safety of Chinese-made products, following international concern. This year the American toy giant Mattel withdrew...

(Albany) - If it's made in China, it won't be sold at the Goodwill Store in Albany. It may seem extreme, but employees say they don't want to take any chances on toys. Like Santa, they're checking their recall list twice, and just for safety, if a donated toy has "Made In China" printed on the back, it's destroyed. It's a tedious and time consuming process. "So we have to do this all day long. We have to read and throw," said LaWanda Johnson. Throw away recalled toys, that could be a danger to your children. "We have a safety...

(BEIJING) - Six Chinese people, including two children, died from food poisoning after eating dumpling soup and two more remained seriously ill, local media reported on Monday, the latest example of food safety risks facing domestic consumers. Four males and four females collapsed on Sunday with severe cramps and vomiting after eating the soup for lunch in the central province of Hubei, the Changjiang Times reported. Two died on the spot. The dead included a 13-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, the report said. It said the poisoning occurred at a scrap collection business but did not given any details...

WASHINGTON, DC. October 17, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Evidence is mounting that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) participated in coverups of health and safety violations and breaches of ethics in approving the abortion drug, RU 486, that has caused the death of at least six women in the US.  Yesterday, the public interest group Judicial Watch announced that newly acquired FDA documents, previously witheld by the FDA, show that the agency knew that the facilities owned by China’s Hua Lian Pharmaceutical Company to manufacture RU 486 were sub-standard at the time they were approved for use in August 2000....

Daniel Gallington: A very dirty story on China’s food Daniel Gallington, The Examiner Aug 15, 2007 3:00 AM (5 hrs ago) WASHINGTON - "I don’t eat them myself” are the wise words of a Beijing baker quoted recently in an Associated Press story about the pervasiveness of adulterated foods in China. In his case, his rolls are half-filled with filthy scrap cardboard gathered from the ground.Such practices are so widespread that the recent episodes of tainted seafood, toothpaste, pet food — and now millions of lead-base painted toys — all from China, shouldn’t surprise anyone. Nevertheless, most Americans don’t have...

China's environmental problems are mounting. Water pollution and water scarcity are burdening the economy, rising levels of air pollution are endangering the health of millions of Chinese, and much of the country's land is rapidly turning into desert. China has become a world leader in air and water pollution and land degradation and a top contributor to some of the world's most vexing global environmental problems, such as the illegal timber trade, marine pollution, and climate change. As China's pollution woes increase, so, too, do the risks to its economy, public health, social stability, and international reputation. As Pan Yue,...

(LONDON) — Chinese medical officials agreed Friday not to transplant organs from prisoners or others in custody, except into members of their immediate families. The agreement was reached at a meeting of the World Medical Association in Copenhagen. China has previously acknowledged that kidneys, livers, corneas and other organs are routinely removed from prisoners sentenced to death row. But officials insist that this only happens when consent is provided. Critics argue that death-row prisoners are not truly free to consent and may feel compelled to become donors, violating personal, religious or cultural beliefs. The announcement Friday comes after several years...

The mug, purchased at the Stroudsburg Dollar Tree store is microwave and dishwasher safe. But you might not want to drink from it. It comes with a sticker that reads: WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. "I'm living in a crazy world here," said John DeNooyer of Bushkill, who purchased the mug. DeNooyer had heard news reports about toys made in China and exported to the United States that contained dangerous levels of lead. Since the reports, he said he has been "a little paranoid"...

(TAIPEI, Taiwan) -- Some 92 percent of Chinese made medicines examined by local health authorities in the past few years, including those promoted for weight loss, as health foods, or herbal medicines, were found to contain banned drugs, Executive Yuan's Secretary-General Chen Ching-jun said at a news conference yesterday. According to Chen, the Department of Health (DOH) conducted examinations from 2005 to 2007 on 151 medicines submitted by local courts, health bureaus, police units, and customs offices and found that 139 failed tests for containing illegal substances. Chen said Taiwan has not lifted the ban on imports of Chinese-made medicines....

BEIJING (AP) -- U.S.-based toy giant Mattel issued an extraordinary apology to China on Friday over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified. The gesture by Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, came in a meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, at which Li upbraided the company for maintaining weak safety controls. Toy inquiry reveals more recalls to come Video More video India's infrastructure has undergone dramatic change in the last few years. Fortune takes you inside this country's sudden...

Some Toy Makers Shun the China Label By MARK LANDLER and IVAR EKMAN FRANKFURT, Sept. 17 — Playmobil of Germany has long promoted its colorful plastic pirates, firefighters and farm animals as better-than-your-average plaything — toys to be handed down rather than chewed up. Now it can add another selling point: they are made in Europe, not China. The same goes for Lego, the Danish maker of toy bricks, and for Ravensburger, a German puzzle and game manufacturer, though it does produce small quantities of nonpaper toys in Chinese factories. With Mattel and the American toy industry reeling from recalls...

(FORT LAUDERDALE) -- The nation's leading veterinarian association has posted a warning to pet owners that Chinese-made jerky treats might be making animals sick. The American Veterinary Medical Association, which represents 75,000 vets,issued the statement last week after a member reported numerous unusual cases of dogs suffering from a rare kidney ailment, after consuming the treats. Most of the products were chicken-flavored....... ......Dr. Richard Goldstein, associate professor of veterinary medicine at Cornell University and part of the team assisting the FDA in its investigation, said most of the affected dogs are small breeds that had developed renal problems. Symptoms include...

Local importers who chose to discuss their testing efforts said they are primarily boosting precautions they were already taking. Matthew Fass started getting panicked calls and e-mails from his customers early in the summer. Concerns about tainted seafood from China had surfaced even before federal regulators issued an order to hold and test all imports of five types of Chinese-raised fish. Fass, president of Maritime Products International in Newport News, has sold bay scallops, catfish and other seafood from China for more than a decade. He had to jump to alleviate customers' fears. "How do we know that your product...

(FOSHAN, China) - At first, it was just some of the piglets. The mother gave birth to 13, all of them stillborn. Within a few weeks, however, she and other adult pigs in neighboring stalls became feverish and died. By the end of the summer, all but a handful of the village's 300 pigs had succumbed to the mysterious disease. "It was quick, very quick. Before we knew something was wrong, they were all dead," said Lo Jinyuan, a 55-year-old pig farmer in the village of Shandi. Moving rapidly from one farm to the next, the virus has been devastating...

Zhang Zhengxiang jabs his finger angrily over the water, which shimmers a bright, fluorescent green. That's the color of the toxic algae that now clogs large swaths of the high-altitude, freshwater Lake Dianchi for most of the year. The water may be pretty from a distance, but it's a sign that the lake is profoundly sick. Before the early 1980s, says Zhang, this was a swimming area, and shrimp from the lake were a prized delicacy at high-end restaurants in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere. Now the lake's shrimp are inedible, and the toxins in the algae make swimming a decidedly...

Controversy has followed an exhibit of preserved, plasticized human bodies around the world. Now, a group of Ohio State University students and faculty members is raising questions about "Bodies … The Exhibition" during its six-month stay in Columbus. Like others, the OSU group is challenging whether the bodies are those of people who died of natural causes, as the exhibit's owners insist, or whether they are those of political prisoners who died in Chinese prisons. Premier Exhibitions, the Atlanta company that brought an exhibit of Titanic artifacts to COSI Columbus in 2005, says it's under suspicion because the bodies came...

(BEIJING) - Growing numbers of Chinese children are being born with deformities due to pollution, later pregnancies and unhealthy lifestyles, state media said on Thursday quoting a medical expert. About 1 million Chinese children were born each year with congenital heart problems, cleft palettes, nerve defects, limb abnormalities and other physical defects, director of China's National Centre for Maternity and Infant Health, Li Zhu, told the China Daily. The number of such congenital deformities was rising and the current occurrence rate of 60 out of every 1,000 births was three times that of developed countries, Li said. Chinese parents, especially...

(BEIJING) - Think a bottle of mineral water might have poisoned you? Then test it on a chicken. One Chinese family on the southern island province of Hainan had just that idea when one of their number started vomiting blood after drinking a bottle of water, a newspaper said. They fed the luckless chicken the rest of the water to see what would happen, the Beijing News said, citing a report in a local paper. "The result was the chicken died within a minute," it said, showing a picture of a man holding a plastic bottle squatting over the crumpled...

U.S. companies rushed to China and other developing countries to produce low-cost goods for price-conscious U.S. consumers, saving money through lower overseas labor and material costs. Now they are paying the price in "the year of the recall." Retailers and manufacturers are reeling from major recalls of Chinese-made goods this year, from tires to seafood to toothpaste to toys. In the latest recall, Mattel Inc. said last week it was recalling several hundred thousand toys worldwide, including Barbie doll accessories and Fisher-Price toys, because of high lead levels. It was the third recall by the toy maker in recent weeks....

(SHANGHAI) - ......But the question remains: Why is lead paint - or lead for that matter - turning up in so many recalls involving goods made in China? The simplest answer, experts and toy companies here say, is price. Paint with higher levels of lead often costs a third as much as paint with low levels of lead. So Chinese factory owners, trying to eke out a profit in an intensely competitive but poorly regulated market, sometimes cut corners and use the cheaper paint. On the books, China's paint standards are stricter than those in the United States, requiring that...

Test-drive a Nissan, win a lead-laced mug Fri Sep 7, 2007 4:24PM EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Chinese merchandise took a fresh knock Friday when car maker Nissan said it was recalling tens of thousands of mugs it gave away in Japan because the paint contains excessive lead. It said it took the action after a hapless car-shopper fell ill after drinking from one of the mugs and complained. Nissan Motor said the cups, which it was giving to anyone who test-drove one of its cars in Japan during a sales initiative that started on August 16, had a lead content...

US and Chinese officials recently met in Beijing for agricultural trade talks. However, the two parties failed to agree with issues regarding poultry trade. China's zero-tolerance for salmonella in raw poultry was discussed in length. "How can you produce poultry without traces of salmonella? It's killed when you cook it," said USDA's Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Mark Keenum, who led the US delegation. As for China, "They simply reaffirmed their position," he stated. On the other hand, Keenum said that the USDA is working to produce rules that would allow China to export cooked chicken products to...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's blood supply is still not being properly monitored for HIV/AIDS a decade after a blood-selling scandal, and it needs international help to tackle the problem, a report said on Thursday. The government has tried to clean up the sector after hundreds of thousands of farmers in central Henan province were infected in the 1990s through schemes in which people sold blood to unsanitary, often state-run health clinics. Then-Health Minister Gao Qiang admitted in a speech earlier this summer that China's blood donation system was far from perfect and safety worries remained. "The demand for blood and...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The world's largest toy maker Mattel has announced its third mass recall in weeks amid fears that 848,000 Chinese-made Barbie and Fisher Price toys could be tarnished with lead-tainted paint. The latest recall, announced Tuesday, comes as Mattel continues to investigate its Chinese toy production. The European Commission meanwhile said Wednesday it may ban some Chinese-made goods unless Beijing demonstrates it is effectively dealing with dangerous products. Top Mattel executives rallied to stress the US toy giant was working around the clock to ensure its toys were safe, as the company said its relationships with some Chinese...

When the 65 steel drums crossed from the Canadian border in late April, the accompanying documents said they contained honey from Canada, according to U.S. government officials. Since most food products from Canada are considered safe, the honey normally would have sailed through U.S. customs. But U.S. inspectors noticed something odd. The green steel drums were marked as containing apple concentrate from China, one official said. When Food and Drug Administration investigators examined the honey inside, they found chips of green paint -- most likely from the drums themselves -- floating at the bottom of some drums. And laboratory tests...

The piles of pills scattered across the desk of Wang Hai, China's leading consumer rights champion, look like painkillers and aspirin and come with convincing packaging. But appearances can be deceptive in China. "They're all fake. They don't contain anything dangerous, but they're all completely useless and just designed to rip off the consumer," said Mr Wang. There have long been cases of such phoney pills being exported to Africa. But the most recent spate of product and food quality scandals have left the "Made in China" label in tatters around the world. Since March, exports ranging from contaminated pet...

Recent scares have raised concerns about the safety of food products sold in supermarkets. But ingredient suppliers say brand-name food producers enforce strict safety standards. From pet food deliberately adulterated with melamine, to contaminated toothpaste and seafood with drug residues, a number of recent scares have raised questions about the safety of food imported from China and other parts of the world. So how much can Americans trust our food supply? Consider one of those frozen prepared meals found in a supermarket freezer — for example, Weight Watchers' ravioli florentine. The box bears a long list of ingredients: wheat,...

Health Canada and Amscan Canada announced Saturday the voluntary recall of 140,000 units of Favor Set brand pencils due to a high lead level found in the coating of the pencils. The pencils were manufactured in China. These pencils should immediately be taken away from children, as sucking or chewing on a such lead-tainted pencils can cause adverse health effects, especially in young children. There is no risk of lead exposure from holding a pencil with a coating that contains lead. In its news release, Health Canada did not identify the level of lead contained in the coating other than...

ILLEGAL: The substance is often added to commercial ponds to protect fish from micro-organisms, but food production use is banned because of possible side effects. Five batches of frozen shrimp from China tested positive for the banned antibiotic nitrofuran, Department of Health (DOH) officials said yesterday. "Further importation of shrimp from China will be suspended until we are convinced that the situation has been remedied," Bureau of Food Sanitation director Cheng Huei-wen told a news conference. Nitrofuran is sometimes added to aquaculture ponds to protect fish from harmful microorganisms. However, the use of nitrofuran in food production is banned in...

Think twice before biting into a chocolate to loose yourself in its taste - you might actually be chewing a wee bit more then you bargained for. On Wednesday (August 29).. worms and moths crawled out of a box of chocolates imitating a popular international brand, and even a few larvae. But by the time this was noticed, a few chocolate balls had been consumed. The chocolates were picked up by a Korean consumer on his trip to China. But local manufactoring experts say it looks as though the contamination happened during the manufactoring process. "It seems to be seriously...

A north Texas woman says a pair of made-in-China flip-flops she bought from Wal-Mart severely injured her feet. Taylor Vanover said she bought the flip-flops because they were cheap and that she developed a serious and painful rash after wearing them. "It hurts, it's irritating, very irritating," Vanover said of the rashes on both her feet that she said follow the exact design of the flip-flops she bought in Gun Barrel City in June. "It itches it burns it tingles. It started out as just like a normal looking rash, and then it's progressed into that, where the actual rash...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Toys "R" Us and the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday recalled 27,000 crayon and paint box sets because the printed ink on the outer packaging of the wood cases contains lead. Moreover, the CPSC said some of the black watercolor paint in the set contains excessive levels of lead, which violates the federal lead paint standard. The "Imaginarium" box sets were sold at Toys "R" Us stores and on the retailer's Website from Oct. 2006 through Aug. 2007. The recall involves the "Imaginarium" brand 213 Piece Wooden Coloring Case which includes crayons, pastels, colored pencils,...

China: Projected Number of Men without Wives Massively Increased By 2020, 37 million Chinese men would be unable to find wives if trends continue By Elizabeth O'Brien BEIJING, China, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Recent demographic reports are showing that the ratio of males to females in China is spiraling out of control. If the increasing imbalance, caused primarily by sex-selected abortions and infanticide, is not remedied, it will lead to increased crimes against women and the threat of an aggressively militant state. In January Chinese media reports said that by 2020, 30 million Chinese men would be unable to...