The Lombardi Law Firm Blog

What manufacturing plant is responsible for the Tylenol recall?

The Tylenol product recall for a chemical smell and contamination of the pills inside the plastic containers seems improbable, if not impossible. Consider for instance how the pills are packaged and how this packaging could allow a chemical to penetrate to the pills inside.

Food Safety: Melamine detection test is quick

The chemists at ETH Zurich (Renato Zenobi, Huanwen Chen, and colleagues) have developed a new mass spectrometric analysis method with which polluted milk can be detected reliably within 30 seconds.

Here is what they say about the test’s advantages over what currently is done to test for melamine.

”Explaining the advantages, Zenobi says, “Using ultrasound-assisted EESI-MS, we can analyse milk directly without any sample preparation steps. The method is fast and very accurate, and needs no more than one drop of milk.” Previously, an analysis required between twenty and sixty minutes to determine the concentration of melamine in a milk sample using standard methods. Zenobi’s group can do it in just 30 seconds. The current publication describes the analysis of milk, milk powder and wheat gluten, but, according to Zenobi, EESI-MS can, in principle, be used to determine the level of melamine in any foodstuff. The detection limit is 500 ppb (parts per billion) – which is five times less than the limit value allowed in foods in the USA and EU.”

 See Chemical Communications by R. Graham Cooks from Purdue University for another method of testing.

”Portable EESI-MS for on-site analyses

A comparable analysis method for melamine was published in the same issue of “Chemical Communications” by one of Zenobi’s colleagues - R. Graham Cooks from Purdue University, USA. However, Cooks atomises and ionises his milk sample by bombarding it with a charged gas (low-temperature plasma; LTP). Zenobi is happy to say that, “Both methods are accurate, fast and robust. Our results are practically identical; the fact that they now appear in the same journal is an amusing coincidence. I really knew nothing of Graham’s melamine project until a short time ago.” At present, the chemist is unwilling to speculate as to whether one of the methods will ultimately become established, and if so, which one. In principle, both methods can be used by any laboratory equipped with an electrospray MS without significant additional expense. Nevertheless, Zenobi is not overly confident that the methods will gain immediate acceptance in foodstuffs testing laboratories: “Established methods usually persist for a very long time – it is hard for innovations to gain a foothold.”

His group is currently working to develop the method further for use in the field. The scientists have in mind a portable instrument that could be used to measure the melamine content directly when the milk is being processed, for example during bottling. Explaining the essential advantage of such an analysis instrument, Zenobi says, “The shorter analysis time is one thing, but the majority of the time - and therefore money - is lost during all the logistics connected with taking the sample.” He is still to receive a direct enquiry from China regarding application of the technology. However, easy-to-handle analysis instruments based on EESI-MS technology might one day contribute to preventing a food scandal such as the one in China at an early stage.”

 References

Zhu L, Gamez G, Chen H, Chingin K, Zenobi R. Rapid detection of melamine in untreated milk and wheat gluten by ultrasound-assisted extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (EESI-MS). Chem. Commun. 2009; Advanced online publication doi:10.1039/b818541g
Huang G, Ouyang Z, Cooks RG.High-throughput trace melamine analysis in complex mixtures. Chem. Commun. doi:10.1039/b818059h

 

Food Safety: Melamine sentencing verdicts does not add up to justice

Who speaks for the mothers and fathers with infants in renal failure?

Who shouts for justice for those same parents of the children who died from the melamine contamination of babies’ milk?

Which government officials in China will be punished? Charged with crimes? Fired? Forced to resign? Who took bribes?

There is no justice in China.

 Tian Wenhua, the former head of Sanlu Dairy, now serving a “life sentence” in prison for the melamine contamination crimes that both killed and permanently maimed infants in China now wants to blame her bosses at Fonterra. She’s pointing to the existence of a document, a document confirmed to exist, but the contents of which are suspect for what she claims it states. Instead of pointing the finger away from China’s mainland, how about pointing the accusatory finger towards mainland China; and especially the CCP officials who must have known of the contamination and chose to look the other way.

Who did Sanlu pay bribes to?

"Tian said during her trial that she made the decision not to halt production of the tainted products because a board member, designated by New Zealand dairy product giant Fonterra that partly owned Sanlu Group, presented her a document saying a maximum of 20mg of melamine was allowed in every kg of milk in the European Union," Xinhua said. "She said she had trusted the document at that time."

Mr Ferrier told the Herald a Fonterra representative had given Tian the document soon after the board was advised of the contamination on August 2.

Melamine in milk as a contaminant has been in the news and banned at least since before May 2007. Complaints about Sanlu’s milk started surfacing in December 2007. Sanlu sold over 800 tons of tainted milk after Sanlu officials clearly knew of the contamination. So pointing to a document that you were provided in August 2008 is disingenuous at best. Its mere subterfuge and an unnecessary distraction, which at this time we don’t need to hear. Those in the dairy industry knew this practice was unacceptable; you just thought you could get away with it.

Chinese Melamine Tainted Milk Scandal: Senior Executive Sentenced - CNN

U.S. Company Used Melamine in Feed

Humans Unlikely to Be Harmed

“By Rick Weiss

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 31, 2007; Page A03

An Ohio company has long been adding the industrial toxin melamine to animal feed ingredients, and those feeds have been eaten by livestock and fish meant for human consumption, officials with the Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday.

The company used the chemical as a binding agent to hold feed granules in pellet form, in contrast to the recent pet food scandal, which involved imported ingredients that were spiked with melamine to provide a false measure of protein content, officials said.

But as with the pet food scandal, they said, the levels of melamine involved appear to be too low to harm humans who may have eaten animals that consumed the tainted feed.

The company, Tembec BTLSR of Toledo, sold the melamine-laden ingredients to Uniscope of Johnstown, Colo., which used them to make three finished food products -- one for cattle, sheep and goats, and two for fish and shrimp.

The contamination came to the FDA's attention on May 18 after Uniscope officials tested for melamine in the feed components they were buying -- something the FDA has been encouraging food producers to do.

The FDA began an investigation the next working day, officials said, and after about 10 days decided how to proceed.

Officials said that Tembec initiated a formal recall of its products yesterday and that the company has stopped adding the chemical.

It remains unclear why Tembec did not stop using melamine months ago, given the intense publicity generated by the recent pet food scandal, during which officials repeatedly made it clear that melamine is not an approved additive for human or animal food.”

So let us get back to the public trial on this issue, you know the one the Chinese Communist Party is so fearful to allow.

Counselor: My question remains, which government officials did Sanlu pay bribes to?

Tian Wenhua: ____________________ (silence)

Counselor: Your honor I would ask that the witness be instructed to answer.

Judge: The witness is instructed to answer the question.

Tian Wenhua: ___________________ (silence)

Counselor: How many dead infants was an acceptable level of casualties to those involved?

Counselor: How many infants with renal failure was an acceptable number?

Counselor: Do you have any grandchildren Ms. Wenhua? Where did you purchase their infant formula? Did any of them suffer renal failure or death?

Counselor: Your honor the next witnesses will be CCP officials, especially those with infant sons, daughter and grandchildren. You know who you are, your children and grandchildren don’t have renal failure or disease from drinking melamine laced infant formula.

Who speaks for the mothers and fathers with infants in renal failure?

Who shouts for justice for those same parents of the children who died from the melamine contamination of babies’ milk?

Which government officials in China will be punished? Charged with crimes? Fired? Forced to resign? Who took bribes?

There is no justice in China.

Food Safety: UPC-Product Label Reform – What’s wrong with the manufacturers using the English language?

Consumers need reform and they need it now so we can determine what products come from China and other parts of the world that sell contaminated foods.

Here is the current problem. Look at the coding systems in place for product identification. Just like user manuals coming in different languages, here is different identification coding systems being used.

What is the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) or the Global Location Number (GLN) or the Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) or the Global Returnable Asset Identifier (GRAI) or the Global Individual Asset Identifier (GIAI) or the Global Service Relation Number (GSRN) or the Global Document Type Identifier (GDTI)? Confused? You should be confused, and I have to wonder if this isn’t part of the reason for using numbers to identify products, instead of using the English language.  If manufacturers and shippers need numeric codes then why not also include English descriptions of the country of origin?

And there is the Universal Product Code (UPC) or the UCC-12 and then the EAN/UCC-13 codes (The EAN-UCC-13 codes use 13 numbers.) and the consumer is terribly confused on how to tell a product’s country of origin.

We need to reform the coding of products to make the country of origin easily read and understood by the consumer.  The global language of business isn’t necessarily conducive to transparency for humans – and it’s humans that need to understand.  The GLN or Global Location Number isn’t the Kings English.

Consumers cannot protect our families and our country’s manufacturing industries without knowing a products country of origin. Go to the store and see if you can tell from what country a product originated and was manufactured?  You may be surprised at what you find.  I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

Identifying country of origin for drugs and foods are the most critical. In this blog I’m dealing only with food products. Food products are the toughest. The older I get the more it appears the most obvious problem is the reason for the problem or the answer to the motivation that created the problem. In this case the most obvious problem is the consumer can’t determine the country of origin. That is the motivation, at least in part, for this coding system. If consumers can’t tell the country of origin they are unable to select products based on country of origin. Is this the intention of the Republic of China Free Trade Agreements?

In the end the bar-coding system may as well be written in Chinese.

Food Safety: Is melamine the latest and greatest DDT-like additive?

The melamine poisoning scandal along with a recent movie has me thinking about DDT. Remember DDT? DDT is formally named dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. If you can say that entire word you get to the bonus round of today's blog. I remember as a young boy my mother walking around the foundation of our Warwick, Rhode Island family home on Vineyard Road with a cardboard container very much like today's bread crumb dispensers. She would shake the white powder onto the concrete foundation and grass to kill the bugs, as she would proudly declare. "Don't get near it! I mean it!" she'd yell at us. I could have said instructed but there was no instruction going on with the tone of her voice; she wanted to put the fear of God's wrath into us and she did. I never touched it but can't say much for my older brother. He's a little light in the head so I can't speak for what he may have done.

Today mom looks back and like the two eggs we had to eat every morning she now believes she was killing us slowly.

I'll ask again, do you remember DDT?

One dictionary defines DDT as a noun.  

Definition: an insecticide effective especially against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. It has been banned in many countries since 1974 because of its toxicity, its persistence in the environment, and its ability to accumulate in living tissue. C₁₄H₉Cl_5.

Dictionary.com lists the chemical composition as:

DDT, Chemistry - a white, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C₁₄H₉Cl₅, usually derived from chloral by reaction with chlorobenzene in the presence of fuming sulfuric acid: used as an insecticide and as a scabicide and pediculicide: agricultural use prohibited in the U.S. since 1973.

Also called dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, chlorophenothane.

Origin: d(ichloro)d(iphenyl)t(richloroethane)

Wikipedia describes it as "DDT (from its trivial name, Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) is one of the best known synthetic pesticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history."

DDT was supposed to be used for killing misquitos to annihilate malaria. DDT was used extensively in the 1940's and 1950's then the whole cancer thing got in the way and low and behold DDT died a quick death. Of course there were casuaties along the way and along the genetic highway. DDT tends to stay in the genes and is passed on to the next generation.

A Taiwaneze filmmaker has just released Surviving Evil, a film that explores the 1979 controversy surrounding PCBs and how the population was exposed and continues to suffer. The Taiwan Journal explores the film and how food contamination caused human suffering long after the source of the contamination would be discovered.

"In April 1979, a handful of students and teachers at Taichung County's Huei Ming School in central Taiwan discovered they were suffering from rashes, or exhibiting symptoms of chloracne--a skin condition consisting of blackheads, cysts and pustules. As time went by, the number of afflicted increased to more than 100.

Tests conducted on the victims revealed they had been poisoned by PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. Around 2,000 people from the nearby counties of Changhua, Hsinchu and Miaoli were eventually identified as having been exposed to the toxic chemicals."

Surviving Evil is a documentary that explores the suffering of real people from contaminated oils used for food preparation. The PCB contamination of 1979 is very similar to the oil contamination in Japan 40 years earlier.

The filmmaker opens this documentary film with an observation.

"Isn't the melamine contamination outbreak a repeat of PCB poisoning in Taiwan from 30 years ago? And isn't the latter a repeat of what happened in Japan 40 years ago? Unless we remember the past, the next tragedy is just around the corner." It closes with a message laden in significance for Taiwan's leaders, "[we don't know] whereto people with eyes will lead Taiwan, but blind people will definitely find their own way."

Today, several countries continue to use DDT  as a pesticide to control disease carrying insects.  The World Health Organization in 2006 came out in support of using DDT inside homes.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 - The World Health Organization on Friday forcefully endorsed wider use of the insecticide DDT across Africa to exterminate and repel the mosquitoes that cause malaria. The disease kills more than a million people a year, 800,000 of them young children in Africa.Skip to next paragraph 

Dr. Arata Kochi, who leads the group's global malaria program, unequivocally declared at a news conference on Friday that DDT was the most effective insecticide against malaria and that it posed no health risk when sprayed in small amounts on the inner walls of people's homes. Expanding its use is essential to reviving the flagging international campaign to control the disease, he said.

Dr. Kochi has powerful allies on DDT and, more broadly, on using insecticide sprays, in Congress and the Bush administration - an odd bedfellows coalition for an agency of the United Nations, which has often been at odds with the White House.

Which countries use DDT?

"There are now 17 African countries using at least some indoor spraying of insecticides to combat malaria. Only 10 of them use DDT - Eritrea, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Swaziland, South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia - the W.H.O. said. Too many countries in Africa have shied away from DDT, Dr. Kochi said, because of the nasty environmental reputation it earned in an earlier era when it was widely sprayed on crops - dangers that do not apply when spraying small amounts indoors."

It's estimated that over 2,000,000 children per year mostly under the age of 5 die of malaria. Worldwide each year 200 to 500 million people get malaria.   Those numbers got the New York Times singing "What the World Needs Now is DDT" They are not alone in support of allowing developing countries to use DDT. The World Policy Forum supports it's use.

I'm not sure what company owns the DDT patent. Monsanto originally produced it and to some extent may control its production. For the most part governments control distribution. Searching the Monsanto site for information concerning DDT produced zero results.

Who is promoting DDT usage?

The Pesticide Action Network has done a decent job of listing information on both sides and has an extensive bibliography.  Here is the PAN resources list:

Sources

• 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa_Fighting_Malaria
• 2. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/29/rachel_carson/index1.html
• 3. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roger_Bate
• 4. http://www.cei.org/dyn/view_expert.cfm?expert=105
• 5. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=230
• 6. http://www.aei.org/scholars/filter.all,scholarID.76/scholar.asp
• 7. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Tren
• 8. http://www.fightingdiseases.org/main/articles.php?articles_id=726
• 9. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Campaign_for_Fighting_Diseases
• 10. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1441
• 11. http://www.cdfe.org/
• 12. http://www.cei.org
• 13. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Henry_Miller
• 14. http://www.hooverdigest.org/034/miller.html
• 15. http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/dailyreport/9216491.html
• 16. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173766,00.html
• 17. http://www.junkscience.com
• 18. http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=174
• 19. http://www.core-online.org
• 20. http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=337
• 21. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1038
• 22. http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.php3?id=205
• 23. http://www.wikipedia.org/Niger_Innis
• 24. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Public_Po...
• 25. http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=174&page=C
• 26. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bonner_Cohen
• 27. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=709
• 28. http://www.nationalcenter.org/Z032407=uganda_will_use_ddt_fight_malaria....
• 29. http://prfamerica.org/speeches/10th/EnvironmentalismConsequences.html
• 30. http://www.alternet.org/environment/52534/
• 31. http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Senator_blocks_honors_for_Rachel_Carson_05...
• 32. http://www.okimc.org/node/656
• 33. http://www.fightingmalaria.org/news.aspx?id=539

 Tomorrow let's look at PCBs.

Food Safety: Halloween candy made in China wins the scariest ghost costume.

1.        Is your kids Halloween candy safe?

With Halloween being right around the corner food safety has to be on every mother’s mind. What candy is made in China? What is the likelihood that melamine could contaminate the candy my child is given? Ever parent needs to consider warning their children to eat no candy while on the go but to wait till they get home and allow the parents the opportunity to inspect their booty. No ifs, ands, or buts allowed.

 

And if there is any possibility of contamination, play it safe and throw it out!

1.      Candy made in China sickens 23 schoolchildren in Cebu.

2.       

3.      Melamine found in sunflowers.

4.       

5.      Jelly beans.

6.       

7.      Lollypops made in China.

8.       

9.      Halloween Candy "Made in China" Buy At Your On Risk

10.   

11.  Gummies from China

 

Here is the querie I Googled:  Where can I get a complete list of Chinese companies that manufacture candy and that are sold in the United States?

 

What came up? Company List - Found 547 companies for 'Candy'

 

Obviously it would be senseless to list those companies here. This Halloween instead of risking kidney failure for your children write to the lobbyists send a message to the foreign companies who sell candy in the U.S. market by not buying their candy. This will demand they clean up their act.

 

And if you didn’t have enough to worry about with melamine, look what Mars and Nestle are lobbying the halls of Washington about. The right to sell candy intended for 3 – to 8- year olds that has a small toy inside the chocolate shell.

 

The fight is over a product called Nestle Magic, a chocolate ball covering a plastic shell, inside of which is a small plastic toy in the form of a Disney character. The product is aimed at 3- to 8-year-olds.

 

A child is supposed to break open the chocolate, separate the two halves of the plastic shell and take out the hard plastic figure. Some consumer groups have complained that the product is dangerous because the toy presents a choking hazard. They argue that it is irresponsible to associate toys with something that goes into the mouth, like candy.

It makes me wonder what the children of lobbyists eat for Halloween.

Where did the 3,000 gallons of gas go?

When businesses, like Kum & Go, have gas leaks it sometimes leads to insurance claims by neighbors whose homes surround the store. In this case today there is 3,000 gallons of gasoline missing from the Kum & Go in Centerville, Iowa. But is it in the ground? And why did the tank leak? That's a big assumption because so far no one has been able to show it did leak.

Lately, America’s largest imported product seems to be communism

As an American, if you don't believe in some form of regulating imported products then you're a communist. If as an American you don't think the people of China need freedom of speech then you are a communist.

The melamine contaminated baby milk from China is into its next phase. Lawsuits were filed in the Supreme People’s Court (oxymoron) in Beijing for 213 children, including 4 that died. Just one hitch, the Supreme People’s Court has already rejected several similar lawsuits and has the power to accept or reject class action lawsuits. Since this is a politically sensitive subject, (Oops you mean Communist Party Officials may have been involved with corruption?) it’s not likely the CCP is going to allow a public airing of official corruption.

When the news doesn’t fit into the CCP’s idea of what they want Chinese people to believe the CCP simply lies or as you will see uses outright intimidation and files criminal charges for having possession of state secrets, fraud or espionage. It’s not unusual for the CCP news to conflict with reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjAh20xatjM

Melamine found in infant formula is used to make tires. But as we now know it was being used to do an end run on protein testing of watered down milk to increase profits. The CCP is up to it's eyeballs into covering up the official corruption involving melamine in milk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prLr1PNCeSg

Lying by the CCP isn’t new. Recent lies have included the sovereignty of Tibet and the treatment of Tibetan monks. Tibetan monks in March 2008 provided evidence of recent attempts by the Chinese Communist Party officials to impersonate Tibetan monks in Lhasa for the purpose of distorting the news the outside world heard about Tibet. Risking their safety and lives real Tibetan monks stormed the phony news conference and told the truth about lacking freedom of speech and the truth about the Tibetan people’s treatment at the hands of the CCP. The Chinese government quickly took the monks away. See it for yourself in this March 31, 2008 YouTube video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnIqn9yj7s4

Globalization requires honesty by governments of country’s that manufacture products for export. Otherwise those countries that are importing their products live according to the export country’s standard of government. If the United States, as an importer of defective Chinese goods doesn’t regulate safety, then we allow the Communist government and the Chinese Constitution to be substituted for the United States Constitution. In other words, the lack of the freedom of speech in China is what we import along with melamine laced food products.

America elects government officials and citizens have the right to criticize them when corruption occurs. But that’s not the case in China. When our own government turns a blind eye to regulating Chinese imports our elected officials capitulate to the Communist Constitution and the Communist form of government. We are a democracy not a communist form of government.

If you want to see Chinese police intimidate common citizens look at this video. Watch at 1:18 minutes into the interview. It’s striking how the police move in to check “papers” and take the witness away for more of the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_vc2ZQI5w

The CCP jails reporters who tell the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-O5edpUVN0

Like it or not we are living according to a standard that is determined by what U.S. elected officials and Chinese Communist Party Officials do or don’t do with regulating Chinese exports being imported to the United States. The problem is too big for the CCP to guarantee export product safety. Companies caught in the melamine scandal simply closed shop and disappeared from the landscape. How do you regulate a here-today-gone-tomorrow industry? Believe it or not the lack of freedom of speech in China affects our safety. If we don’t care about freedom of speech in China for the sake of its people we should care about it from the standpoint of imported product safety. The best regulatory reform we can enact is exporting freedom of speech for the Chinese people. By the CCP allowing the dissidents to speak out about official corruption they will convince America they are serious about export safety.

Let freedom of speech ring out across China.