Melamine and Dog Treats

The latest from the China front: WalMart announced today that melamine was found (again) in jerky treats for dogs, and they learned of it after pet owners complained of their dogs getting sick (and in some cases dying) after being fed the treats. How can we protect ourselves, and our families (including the four-legged members) from all these Chinese contaminants? It is hard since country of origin labeling is not required. But here's a couple of things you can do:

Buy less stuff, but seeker higher quality products. We are all guilty of buy, buy, buy, and that's part of the problem. Several years ago I made a firm commitment to cut down on my purchases of all types, but to spend more on what I do purchase.

Email your representatives and tell them that this is unacceptable. We need the federal agencies that are supposed to look out for us funded at a level that allows them to just that! You can find your elected officials email by going to www.house.gov (search for your rep by zip code) and www.senate.gov.

In Monday's post, I mentioned Lice B Gone as a sugar-based enzyme product on the Baby Green Genes site. In a follow up, Betty Mekdeci of the site's parent organization, asked me to clarify that her organization doesn't endorse individual brands of products, and she said that other manufacturers offer similar plant-based products for lice control. And, in another note, I have revised the other pages of the Toxic Burden site: The articles will have some longer articles (there's one on nanotechnology there now) and the tips page will be the place to find things like the kind of fish that are safe to eat, and the kind to be avoided, or tips on homemade and safe cleaning products. Check the other pages out at www.toxicburden.com.

It's a Funny World, Why Am I Not Laughing

In the last few months we have heard that Chinese products are:

Making our dogs and cats sick. One story I read estimated that 39,000 pets were sickened and several thousand died after eating pet foods prepared with melamine-contaminated wheat gluten. Melamine is a by-product of coal production, and used in plastics as a fire retardant. It is also a member of the cyanide family--which explains its toxicity.

Contaminating toothpaste and cough syrups. Though no one died in the US, there were confirmed deaths in Panama from people using the diethylene glycol contaminated products (some of which did make their way into this country). Diethylene glycol is an industrial plasticizer, and a coolant/antifreeze. It's toxic attributes? They are many, and not for the faint hearted to consider: Nausea and vomiting, headache, anuria, narcosis, cyanosis, tachypnea, tachycardia, hypotension, stupor, prostration, hypoglycemia and unconsciousness, convulsions and death. It can also cause degenerative changes in the kidneys and liver, central nervous system depression, nephrotoxicity, abdominal pain, weakness, respiratory failure, cardiovascular collapse, and acute renal failure and brain damage. Ah, yes, and let us not neglect to mention that somnolence has been reported in children. Personally I don't even know what some of these conditions, listed on the Material Safty Data Sheet for diethylene glycol,are, but I know I don't want to experience them.

Causing a recall of millions of toys. The toys were painted with lead, a known neurotoxicant that has been banned here since 1978 for use in any paints headed toward the consumer marketplace. According to the National Institutes of Health, there are:

1. "No effective clinical interventions" to lower the levels of lead in children's blood once it is there
2. Children are "at risk of adverse developmental effects" at concentration levels of less than 10 µg/dL
3. Children "cannot be accurately classified as having blood lead levels above or below 10 µg/dL because of the inaccuracy inherent in laboratory testing"
4. And finally, "there is no evidence of a threshold below which adverse effects are not experienced"[emphasis added].

Wow, that is all scary. So what is the funny part of the story? Last Friday, on the MSNBC program, HARDBALL, Erin Burnett (the anchor of the CNBC program, STREET SIGNS) said, "[I]f China were to revalue it’s currency or China is to start making say, toys that don’t have lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now, they’re keeping prices low and they’re keeping the prices for mortgages low, too.”

OK, the implication here is that you and I and everyone else in the United States would rather have people in other parts of the world dying from handling these chemicals in the production of our goods, and have our pets die, and have our children and grandchildren suffer the IQ reduction lead is best known for, just so that we can buy pet food or toys for a few pennies less? Huh? I just don't get it. I will say right here, charge me a little more.

A reader gave me the head's up on this story by email. Thanks, Lynn.