China fills up U.S. Medicine Cabinets

It's not enough that we have had to contend with antifreeze toothpaste, poison dog food, date rape toys and formaldehyde candies, now worry about your medicine cabinet.

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 national-security concerns are edging into the debate.

I wonder why this is occurring. Could it be this?

The Chinese and Indian companies are all but exempt from oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration .

"Only 13 inspections were conducted in China in 2007," Rep. John Dingell , a Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said at a hearing Nov. 1 . "At this rate, it would take the FDA 55 years just to clear this backlog."

By giving China a virtual pass on FDA inspections, Acker said, Chinese firms get a cost savings of about 25 percent above American companies, which face unannounced on-site inspections at any time.

I encourage you to read the whole article. It is a testament to the failure of this globalized system of 'free trade' and 'open markets'. When consumer safety is relegated to the back burner in the drive for ever increasing profits, we all lose in the end.

Sweatshop Crucifixes

In a follow up to this post, I came across this video by Jim Hightower discussing crucifixes that have been made using sweatshop labor in China.

Sarkozy and EU pressure Beijing over Yuan

The EU trade deficit with China continues to grow.

Sarkozy and EU pressure Beijing to revalue Chinese currency

by Dong Zhixin

European leaders are mounting more pressure on China to allow the yuan to appreciate faster amid a rising trade deficit with the world's fourth largest economy.

Peter Mandelson, the European Union trade commissioner, warned of anti-dumping measures if Beijing failed to reduce an "unsustainable" trade deficit, according to the Britain-based Financial Times.

China should "manage its currency better" for its own economic good and address the widening trade gap, Mandelson was reported as saying.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will also raise the currency issue during talks with Chinese leaders this weekend in Beijing, according to the Reuters.

Sarkozy plans to call for an "equitable and fair" relationship among four major currencies - the dollar, euro, yen and yuan, a senior French official was quoted as saying.

The lobbying for a stronger yuan is set to intensify when an EU delegation led by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet visit Beijing at the end of this month.

In the first nine months, China's trade surplus with the EU reached US$94.89 billion, an increase of 39.7 percent from a year earlier, according to statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. The EU is China's largest trade destination ahead of the United States.

To address the widening surplus, a commerce ministry spokesman Thursday urged the EU to ease restrictions on high-tech exports to China.

So far this year, the Chinese currency, the yuan, has appreciated more than five percent against the US dollar. However, that was far less than the euro’s 11 percent growth against the greenback.

By Thursday, the yuan has depreciated seven percent against the European single currency from the end of last year, prompting Europe to join the chorus of China's major trade partners in demanding the yuan to rise faster in value.

Chinese Toy Recall- the PR Push Begins!

We have all heard the horrific stories concerning the safety of the toy products sold that were imported from China. From dangerous levels of lead paint to date rape drug coated toys, the news has not been good.

It appears, however, that both the toy manufacturers and the government of China are hitting back hard to dispel any fears about product safety. ABC News published a 'news' story yesterday entitled The Myths and Misconceptions of Chinese Toys, which sought to dispel any fears about the products coming from China.

It has been a long, hot summer and a difficult autumn for the toy industry, with an incredible amount of media coverage and political interest -- on both sides of the Pacific -- in the product design and quality issues that have become apparent. As we enter into the 2007 holiday season, I thought this would be a good opportunity to provide some perspective on all this from the standpoint of someone who cares deeply about the toy industry and who has been a part of it all his life.

There have been a number of product recalls, for a variety of reasons, and because of them, both the U.S. toy industry and our Chinese suppliers have taken it on the chin. Some of this is deserved, but a lot is not. As inevitably happens with issues involving our children and their health and safety, a lot of mistaken information has been passed around and blown up beyond all recognition.

The piece, incidentally, was written by Alan Hassenfeld. And who is he? According to his bio on Forbes:

Alan Hassenfeld has served as a Director since December 2003. Mr. Hassenfeld has been Chairman of Hasbro since May 2003 and from 1989 until May 2003 was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hasbro, Inc., a provider of children's and family entertainment products. Mr. Hassenfeld is a trustee of the Hasbro Charitable Trust and Hasbro Children's Foundation. Mr. Hassenfeld also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the salesforce.com/foundation and other not-for-profit organizations. Mr. Hassenfeld received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

You see, according to this ABC 'News' piece, written by the Hasbro Chairman, it was all just an unfortunate misunderstanding that was fueled by misinformation. The real victims? The toy manufacturers and, of course, China. Uh-Huh!

Not to be outdone, this PR video has popped up on YouTube. The video, produced in China, purports to show how vigilant the Chinese are when it comes to product safety. Take a look...

More Chinese Toys Recalled

The lists keeps growing and growing. This from the The New York Times:

"Amid a fresh wave of toy recalls yesterday, a consumer advocacy group said it had found hazardous levels of lead in many toys made out of vinyl plastic, potentially expanding the scope of testing and recalls of contaminated toys.

A random testing of more than 50 plastic toys found high lead content in 11 of them, according to Mike Schade, a campaigner for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, which helped organize the testing. Ten were made out of polyvinyl chloride, also referred to as PVC or vinyl. Three contained “extremely high” lead levels — a Go Diego Go backpack, a Superfly monkey and a pair of Circo Lulu boots."

Product safety laws are pretty useless when we now import just about everything sold here from China where few if any laws exist.