Heparin

China has once again flooded the US market with contaminated products. It has a history of sending over lead painted toys and other dangerous goods and the US has a history of doing a poor job of inspecting or regulating Chinese imports.

The latest imported health danger is Heparin, a blood thinner, made from the mucous membranes of the intestines of slaughtered pigs. This is often produced in China by unregulated family workshops. The contaminant, identified as oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, a cheaper substance, slipped through the usual testing and was recognized only after more sophisticated tests were used.

Congress has belated taken action to pass legislation requiring far more aggressive inspections of Chinese products. This is poor comfort for the over 80 patients known to have had severe reactions known to be related to the contaminant.

Consumers of this product have a valid cause of action despite the continual attempts to block the right to trial by jury by the conservative interest groups which have controlled appellant courts and legislative bodies too long.
http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1215852.html

International Consumer Protection

China has polluted our food system with poisons and the trail to the guilty has been covered with bureaucratic morass. Recently reports of recalled products has pointed to China as the number one culprit for unreasonably dangerous products. We need to enforce sanctions and judicial remedies against manufacturers outside our borders. The following article is a classic example of the looming problem associated with unregulated integration of the world's economy.

 

http://www.bailey-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1215486.html

 

As More Toys Are Recalled, Trail Ends in China
Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
A toy factory worker in Dongguan, China, where some of the Thomas & Friends trains are made.



By ERIC S. LIPTON and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: June 19, 2007
WASHINGTON, June 18 — China manufactured every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the United States so far this year, including the enormously popular Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, a record that is causing alarm among consumer advocates, parents and regulators.

Times Topics: Consumer Product Safety



Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
A worker at a factory in Dongguan, China, uses a marker to touch up the paint on toy trains. Several Dongguan factories make Thomas toy trains.
The latest recall, announced last week, involves 1.5 million Thomas & Friends trains and rail components — about 4 percent of all those sold in the United States over the last two years by RC2 Corporation of Oak Brook, Ill. The toys were coated at a factory in China with lead paint, which can damage brain cells, especially in children.

Just in the last month, a ghoulish fake eyeball toy made in China was recalled after it was found to be filled with kerosene. Sets of toy drums and a toy bear were also recalled because of lead paint, and an infant wrist rattle was recalled because of a choking hazard.

Over all, the number of products made in China that are being recalled in the United States by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has doubled in the last five years, driving the total number of recalls in the country to 467 last year, an annual record.

It also means that China today is responsible for about 60 percent of all product recalls, compared with 36 percent in 2000.