Cipro, it should be noted, is the “nuclear option” among antibiotics. They don’t get a heckuvalot stronger than that, and if it’s being dumped into waters to keep fish healthy, the odds of organisms becoming immune to it greatly increase.
Enrofloxacin is only used in animals. I’ve heard rumors that it can cause hallucinations in people, but I’ve never tried it myself. I wonder if there’s enough in the catfish to cause anything like that? Hmm … psychedelic catfish.
Dude…my hushpuppies are talking to me.
NPR had a piece yesterday about food related problems in China. All sorts of chemicals are being used as preservatives and colorants. The regulation and enforcement needed to protect local customers, not just importing customers, just isn’t there yet. An average of 400 people per year die of food poisoning.
The US sent a representative to coordinate efforts to increase regulation (the event that prompted the radio piece) and the Chinese officials appear to be motivated to cooperate.
I’m sure we’re all hoping for speedy improvements.
[Keanu]
Whoa…
[/Keanu]
Can a state ban a product that is in interstate commerce?
Wait a minute. Mississippi imports catfish? That is just so wrong…
Huh, when I saw this thread title, I thought it was going to be about the Chinese factory that sold industrial solvent as pharmaceutical-grade glycerine.
There was just a long article (free registration required) in the New York Times about Chinese suppliers shipping out proplene glycol (antifreeze) labeled as pharmacutical-grade glycerine (which is used to make medicinal syrups, like cough syrup). Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have died horribly, mostly in Panama and India.
However, the Chinese authorities in that province will not prosecute. They claim that the manufacturer was not licensed to make pharmacutical-grade products, so they can’t be charged with adulterating pharmacuticals. Obvious, no?
China’s clear lack of desire to make or enforce any kind of environmental, food, or chemical safety laws is absolutely appalling. Likewise the willingness of the rest of the world to take China’s products despite their abyssmal safety record just because it costs a few pennies less.
Until people (either inside or outside China) get really held accountable, this is going to keep happening.
mischievous
bwahaha
Dh was saying a couple of weeks ago that this whole thing is probably MUCH bigger than just pet food.
Of course, it’s probably some American company that’s selling them the stuff that they’re shipping back to us.
I think this all proves that the only things we should be importing from China are the cheap ass non-edible novelty items. Unless … have there been any reports of people/animals dying from them?
Actually, there have been.
About 10 years ago there was a flail where some chinese company had made cheap dolls (think carnival prizes) stuffed with industrial rags soaked with some nasty chemical. They’d gotten the rags cheap as hazardous waste in China & used them as stuffing for kid’s toys exported to the US (& maybe Europe) .
Many (dozens?) of kids got pretty sick, massive rash, uber-allergic reactions, difficulty breathing, etc. I think I remember that a couple died or came damn close.
Not to completely discount the horror of it all, but if you read this story, read all the way to the end. There is a reasonable possibility that the Chinese manufacturer had actualy labeled the barrels with the Chinese equivalent of *faux * glycerine (substitute glycerine). The real crime may have been one of the middlemen mistaking that for a brand name and rewriting the inspection papers just calling it glycerine, then someone else in the supply chain not testing the contents like they were supposed to.
The story starts out very sensationalist, “oh the horrible Chinese” but later introduces some more realistic complications of the global supply chain.
Not to mention the kid jewelry and vinyl lunch boxes with too-high levels of lead.
I understand what you’re saying here, and there is probably some culpability in several places, but you’ll also note that the same companies which supplied the fake gylcerine responsible for hundreds of deaths are still advertising “pharmacutical-grade” gylcerine online, which they are explicitly not licensed to make - and clearly aren’t making. Also, the original containers (even if they were labeled “fake” gylcerine) came with a chemical analysis that stated that they contained 99.5% pure gylcerine. This, in my mind, means that the primary responsibility lies with the original manufacturers who were fraudulently selling the stuff.
mischievous
The kids jewelry and toys always have something being recalled for lead.
The soy sauce made from contaminated hair a couple years ago was pretty bad. A summury article on the hair and they raise the point the product made from hair may have gone into bakery goods. I always check food in the store to make sure it isn’t from china. I wish I could know that food made else where didn’t use ingredients from China.
Given that “Chinese inspectors thought it was the manufacturer’s secret formula,” I don’t think the manufacturer actually intended for anyone to easily figure out that the material was fake. If the label had been in Chinese and actually said “substitute glycerine”, I might buy that story, but not if they were just marked “TD Glycerine”.
“Hey, it’s hidden on the label; why didn’t you notice?”
Besides the falsified certificates that mischievous mentioned, do you think anyone would try to make an excuse like that for Dow Chemical if they started selling their ethelyne glycol as “FK Glycerine” (Fake Glycerine) or “Glycerine PSN” (Glycerine poison)?
More than enough reason to ban all foodstuffs or additives imported from China. Let them clean up their act, then we’ll see about readmiting their crap.
From the quote in the OP:
Did anyone else wonder at first just what the heck Mississippi grocery stores were doing with all those illegal antibiotics?
:dubious:
This is all part of the newest methodolgy of drug smuggling – in the flesh of fish. Catfish crack, muskie meth, walleye weed, …