China Is Trying To Kill Us

I’ve decided the People’s Republic of China is trying to kill you, your children, and your pets.

I guess it’s nothing new, really. I mean, for decades they’ve been trying to get Americans fat and give us heart attacks by exporting their food style. Call me paranoid if you wish, but have you ordered chow mein lately from your local Chinese restaurant? Or a nice, big egg roll? A side of wontons? Even fried rice? Go ahead, order some take-out tonight. I’d bet my left pinkie finger your dish is dripping with grease. Yum, but do you really need to see through your napkin? I really became suspicious when my MSG-laced Chinese food started giving me migraines. So I pretty much stopped eating Chinese food.

Perhaps, sensing this, China changed its tactic. They’ve stepped up their efforts to assassinate you. Now they’re taking the direct approach with good ol’ fashioned poison!

Consider these news stories from just the last three months:

1) Toxic Trains! Approximately 11 million “Thomas the Tank Engine” toys were made in china with a particularly dangerous lead paint, and are now recalled (ARTICLE). My soon-to-be three-year-old son really wants a “James” train. We had to tell him “Sorry, Son, but James is stuck in China.”

2) Recalls Galore. According to Scott Wolfson of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, “So far in 2007, 60 percent of the recalls we have conducted are of products made in China. We have done 24 recalls of toys; all of those products have been made in China." (ARTICLE)

3) Booty Bungle. I also had to rescue my children from another Chinese contaminant. There is currently a recall for a children’s puffed corn snack called Veggie Booty, which my kids love to eat. It turns out they are made with spices that are contaminated with Salmonella bacteria (ARTICLE). Yum! That’s good eats!

4) Malevolent Melamine. Dogs around the nation are dying from kidney failure and other symptoms due to shipments of wheat flour containing the protein melamine and, apparently, poisonous cyanuric acid from Chinese factories (articles HERE and HERE). China initially denied the contamination, then admitted the problem, but has been slow to investigate or work with outside investigators. They still deny the poisonous nature of the contaminants. It is highly likely some of this wheat flour got into human food. Careful with your dumplings!

5) Antifreeze Toothpaste. At least 900,000 tubes of toothpaste containing the toxic antifreeze component diethylene glycol came to America from China, winding up mainly in mental hospitals, prisons, and juvenile detention centers for some reason (ARTICLE), as well as your friendly neighborhood discount store. The FDA recommends throwing out all toothpaste made in China. A similar diethylene glycol contamination in cough syrup from China killed at least 100 people across Latin America, but Chinese officials say you shouldn’t worry, since the concentration in the cough syrup was much higher than in your toothpaste so the toothpaste is perfectly safe to use, and no one’s died - yet. Don’t forget to floss!

6) Shellfish Shocker. The FDA is carefully inspecting all shellfish coming from China, as a number of shipments have been highly contaminated with DDT and other toxins (ARTICLE). Mmmmm. I likes my oysters raw and full of chemicals….

7) Blown Tires. At least 450,000 tires made in China (by Hanzhou Zhongce Rubber Co.) are being recalled by their American distributor. Seems the Chinese manufacturer skimped on necessary glue (or “gum strip”) to hold the tread on, resulting in tread separation and blow-outs. At least two people are dead and another badly injured. Does 450,000 tires sound like a lot? That was just one distributor. There are at least six other distributors in America that have not come forward. I guess if the contaminated food doesn’t get ya, the drive to the gym will.

8) Magnetic Intestines. A product called Mag Stix is a children’s toy made of nifty sticks that interconnect using strong magnetic balls. Neat. Made in China. Unfortunately, if small children swallow the magnets, the magnets interconnect within the intestines causing blockages and perforations (ARTICLE). It has now been recalled. A previous toy, called Magnetix, was made much the same way and resulted in the death of a 20-month old. Other small children required surgery and hospitalization (ARTICLE). And where was Magnetix made? You guessed it: China.

9) Hang ‘Em High. And what has China done to fix the problem of all their toxic and malfunctioning goods? Why, execute those responsible, like any good communist regime, of course! (ARTICLE) Seems some high-ranking health and safety officials were taking massive bribes to look the other way, particularly for another oversight – falsely approving a number of fake drugs, mostly for leukemia and arthritis. Now they look down a gun barrel. Sure, they’re scum, but do they have to DIE for their crimes? China has also shut down 180 food manufacturers and publicly tried many of those responsible. Truly I don’t want to die from Chinese poisoning, but I wouldn’t care for them to die, either. But what else would you expect from those who masterminded the Tiananmen Square massacre?

Don’t worry, there’s more. Go to the Chinese Poison Train site to learn more.

Heck, after all this, it makes me wonder if Chinese president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao are sitting back laughing about all this. “Stupid Americans,” they must be thinking, “As long as they shop at Wal-Mart, we’ll have free trade status, and we can get away with poisoning their dogs, selling black-market copies of movies and CDs, and selling them cheap crap for a profit. And we don’t even have to be democratic, respect the rights of our citizens, or protect our environment to do it!” And they’d be right. One family recently finished living an entire year without Chinese products. They wrote a BOOK on it, and said it was extremely difficult. I don’t doubt it.

So, to my tens of readers, next time you crack open that fortune cookie after consuming mass quantities of egg rolls and shrimp chow mein dripping with cooking oil, be sure to read the fine print. It may read, “Made in China. Not approved for consumption by the FDA.”


Addendum (7/27/07): HERE is a good CNN.com webpage devoted to the issue of tainted Chinese products and the fallout from it.

Update (8/1/07): HERE, from CNN.com, is yet another massive toy recall due to Chinese production using lead-based paint. This time it’s for 967,000 Big Bird, Elmo, Diego, and Dora toys. Geez. Why the hell would companies keep doing business with China after all this??

Update (8/13/07): One of the owners of the Chinese company that made those Elmo (and others) toys has hung himself in disgrace. See THIS more recent post for details.

Update (8/15/07): (More Recent Post) Recalled lead-containing toys and baby bibs.

Update (8/23/07): The August 2007 issue of Nature Biotechnology (Volume 25, number 8) has, on page 835, an article on the rise, fall, and eventual execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration. He was supposed to be the face of a new era in Chinese modernism, now he's just another corrupt official that got rich off of making products cheap but dangerous products.

Update (11/8/07): (More Recent Post) Chinese AquaDots products metabolize to the date-rape drug GHB when ingested, as well as other recalled products which contain lead.

Image taken from HERE.