Bored With Killing Pets

Apparently China, bored with killing our pets, is moving on to people. Reports are coming in of toothpaste with antifreeze in it! Wait a darn minute! Antifreeze!

If we are building a house and I get splinters, smashed fingers, even bleed some; that's an expected risk. Stick with me now. But, if we are building a house and my car explodes; I have to wonder who my friends are.

So how the flip do you accidentally get an antifreeze component, specifically diethylene glycol, in toothpaste?! (For the "yeah but..." crowd: diethylene glycol is a lethal chemical and the toxic toothpaste from China has been already been sold in our hemisphere. -Reuters, via CNN)

All this brings me too an equally serious rant. We're buying "made in China" toothpaste!!!

That toothpaste belongs on some one's $700 suit.

Tests in Panama showed toothpaste on store shelves contained high levels
of diethylene glycol. Apparently at least 2 toothpaste brands were imported illegally through a free-trade zone. Toxicpaste has also been reported in Australia.
According to Reuters, "It was not immediately clear which brands of toothpaste sold in the Unites States are made in China."
Johnson & Johnson, maker of Rembrandt toothpaste, wasn't immediately available.
A spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Aquafresh, had no immediate comment.
A Procter & Gamble spokesperson said Crest is American-made.
A spokesperson for Colgate-Palmolive said the company does not import toothpaste into the USA from China.
Chinese officials reportedly "plan" to start caring. -source Reuters, via CNN

So... Find out if you have any "made in China" toothpaste. If so, put the cap on and politely drop it off at the closest state or federal legislative office with the attached note, "Not while I'm an American!"

I'm all for foreign trade. But our freakin' toothpaste, and apparently our pet food, should be made in the USA!

6/3/07 UPDATE: And now China is rejecting an FDA warning. Click to read more.

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