Chemical trail of death links to Chinese companies

Source Agencies/Shanghai Daily | May 9, 2007, Wednesday |

Print Edition

A CHINESE company selling a chemical that ended up in Panamanian medicines which killed at least 51 people was authorized to sell products only for industrial use, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said yesterday.

She did not identify the company and provided no further details.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that China's Taixing Glycerine Factory produced the industrial chemical - diethylene glycol - and fraudulently passed it off as 99.5 percent pure glycerin to a Spanish company, Rasfer International, which in turn sold it to Panama's Medicom SA.

Medicom then sold it to a government laboratory, which used the contaminated material to make cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment, the Times said.

Also yesterday, China's quality watchdog reported that two domestic companies exported contaminated wheat gluten and rice protein blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States.

The US Food and Drug Administration earlier said that Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co Ltd and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co Ltd had exported the products, tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

A wave of animal deaths in the US in March was blamed on melamine contamination, triggering one of the biggest pet food recalls in US history, involving more than 100 brands.

The FDA discovered melamine - a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants - in pet food recalled by Ontario-based Menu Foods and traced it back to the two Chinese companies.

"The two companies illegally added melamine to the wheat gluten and rice protein in a bid to meet the contractual demand for the amount of protein in the products," said China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The administration said the two companies managed to evade checks by labeling their products as exports that were not subject to quality inspection.

The watchdog said it has ordered local branches to strengthen quality inspection of all vegetable proteins. It also said public security authorities had launched an investigation and detained several company officials.

About Us
|
Terms of Use
|
RSS
|
Privacy Policy
|
Contact Us
|
Shanghai Call Center: 962288
|
Tip-off hotline: 52920043

沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
|
互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
|
网络视听许可证：0909346
|
广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
|
增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012

Chemical trail of death links to Chinese companies

Email this to your friend