Tainted Meds From China Kill Panamanians

A top Panamanian prosecutor said tests show at least 94 people have died from taking medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol since July 2006 and that 293 more deaths are under investigation.

Prosecutor Dimas Guevara told The Associated Press on Wednesday that people have continued to die this year even though the tainted medicine was pulled from shelves in October, with some struggling for months before dying.

Previously Panamanian authorities had confirmed only 51 deaths from the medicine.

A chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid, diethylene glycol was used in cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment made in a Panama government laboratory.

Investigations revealed the chemical was made by a Chinese company that fraudulently passed it off as 99.5 percent pure glycerin, a sweetener commonly used in drugs, to a Spanish company. That company sold it to Panama’s Medicom SA, which sold it to a government laboratory.

China has been dealing with a rash of consumer protection problems, starting with the heavily publicized pet food recall, and morphed into a wide range of health care products, many of which were contaminated with toxic chemicals, and also tire recalls because they lacked key ingredients.

Nearly 60% of the goods recalled in the US this year originated in China. The list of defective products continues to increase, and who is shouldering the burden of these goods? Well, an importer of the defective tires looks like they'll be heading into bankruptcy because they simply lack the funds to handle the recall, which might cost upwards of $90 million on 450,000 tires.

But the problem also includes plenty of products that China produced for domestic consumption.

Tales of dangerously shoddy manufacturing within China are nothing new. In 2004 bogus baby formula killed dozens of infants. More recently the Chinese media have reported half a dozen dead and many ill from a flawed antibiotic, 11 dead from tainted injections, 56 people ill as a result of contaminated meat, toxic snacks pulled off shelves and fake blood protein discovered in hospitals. In May the head of the agency that regulates Chinese food and drugs, Zheng Xiaoyu, was sentenced to death for accepting bribes in exchange for licences to produce fake drugs and medical devices. And this week a report from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, China's standards watchdog, said that 20% of domestic products tested had failed to meet safety standards.

And those Chinese safety standards may well be below those of other countries, including the US. So, don't go looking for those Chinese cars rolling into US or European showrooms anytime soon. This Chinese car, tested in Germany, failed miserably. The car door and roof pillar collapsed, and if you were the hapless driver of this vehicle, you most likely suffered amputations of your legs, and massive trauma to the rest of your body, resulting in a bloody death.

Coast Guard Makes Biggest Bust In U.S. History

The price of coke just got VERY expensive.

March 21, 2007 — - At nearly 20 tons, it's the largest maritime cocaine bust in U.S. history. The U.S. Coast Guard announced today that it seized 42,845 pounds of the drug from the Gatun, a Panamanian ship. Two of the Coast Guard's cutters approached the ship Sunday after a patrol plane spotted the vessel about 20 miles southwest of the Panamanian coast.

Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Karen Tandy pointed out that usually drug traffickers store their caches in secret compartments or conceal them with other legitimate cargo, but this shipment wasn't exactly hidden.

"They simply loaded these bales of cocaine into cargo containers on the top of the deck of this freighter. They were hiding in plain sight on the main deck."

Charley Diaz captains of one of the Coast Guard ships that closed in on the Gatun. He said the Gatun's crew did not resist but appeared nervous as the Coast Guard approached the crew's vessel. Diaz acknowledged the Panamanian ship was carrying some legal cargo, but that the "bales [of cocaine] were just piled high" in containers on the ship's deck, "almost up to the ceiling," Diaz described. "To think that any one of those containers, any two containers, can hold this much drugs is eye-opening."

Hitting Drug Traffickers 'Where It Hurts'

Tandy estimated the haul of cocaine could have sold on the street for about $600 million. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, "Through collaboration, we've been able to strengthen our counternarcotics efforts, and to send a strong message to drug traffickers where it hurts -- in their pocket."

Cash, Drugs and Cartels

This bust blows past the old record of 30,109 pounds, seized from a ship in September 2004.

And the Coast Guard raid comes on the heels of a record-breaking cash seizure by the DEA last week. In cooperation with Mexican officials, that agency confiscated $205 million from chemical brokers who had provided Mexican cartels with the supplies to make methamphetamine.

In January, the DEA announced the extradition of 15 suspects tied to four Mexican drug cartels.

"That makes three big strikes in less than two months against the once untouchable and feared Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for so much of the drug supply in the United States," said Tandy.

Well congrats to the Coast Guard and the DEA. It boggles my mind, although it shouldn't, that there is that much demand for 20 tons of cocaine. 20 tons of something that is sold in grams. I am assuming that is 20 tons uncut. The amount is just mind blowing (literally.)