China's exploding mobile phone batteries

Another consumer product disaster in China: exploding mobile phone batteries
By David Barboza
Published: July 6, 2007

SHANGHAI: After concerns over pet food, toothpaste, seafood and defective tires, China may now have to cope with another consumer product disaster: exploding mobile phone batteries.

Chinese regulators in the southern Guangdong Province, one of the world's biggest electronics manufacturing centers, said this week that they had found Motorola and Nokia mobile phone batteries that failed safety tests and were prone to explode under certain conditions.

The batteries were said to be manufactured by Motorola and the Sanyo operation in Beijing, and were being distributed by companies based in the Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong - one of China's biggest export centers.

It is unclear whether any of the substandard and hazardous batteries entered the export market. The announcement came just a day after China's state-controlled news media reported that in June a 22-year-old man in western China was killed after his Motorola cellphone exploded in his shirt pocket.

Chinese Food: What About The Children?

We flipped out when children might have seen Janet Jackson's nipple on tv, but yet again another product made in China has been contaminated, and the outcry isn't nearly as great.

A children's snack made in China has been recalled after 54 cases of salmonella. Parents of a toddler who had violent bloody diarrhea after eating this product have sued the company. Chinese products are continuing to be recalled, often after damage is done, but is this an effective strategy in dealing with the problem?

Dog and cat food, animal feed, apple juice concentrate, children's snacks, and baby bibs are being recalled as unsafe and we shake our heads and ignore the situation.

Some things like the engine coolant in the toothpaste were detected relatively quickly. The law of averages makes one safe in stating that there is some nasty things that we are putting in the mouths of our children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems that don't belong there.

Write your member of congress. Demand that the FDA actually give a damn about our food. This is not about xenophobia. I trust products made in Japan. I trust products made in Australia. We are being inundated with crap from China though where regulations seem to be in an Ayn Rand fantasy land at the moment.

Is Janet Jackson's nipple really more offensive than that?

Posted by trifecta at 7:17 PM

Timeline of hazardous made-in-China products, 2007

Who-Sucks.com has compiled a master timeline of incidents involving dangerous (sometimes lethal) "made in China" products banned or recalled by the US Consumer Products Safety Commission in 2007. It's a big list. Well-known killers like Thomas the Tank Engine of Death and Antifreeze Toothpaste are in here, but so are less-known gems like "razor blades for kids," "lead bracelets," "toxic jackets," and "dangerously crappy hammocks."

READ THE FULL LIST OF OVER 30 PRODUCTS

Can China Tame The Chinese Poison Train?

The Washington Post and The New York Times have done a magnificent job examining the complex nature of the Chinese Poison Train, but the Times finally cut to the chase and asked the million-dollar question: can China tame the Chinese Poison Train? The solution requires China to reform an ailing regulatory regime. As many as 17 bureaucracies have overlapping responsibilities in just the food and drug sphere, and they jealously guard their power. The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine have all vied for monitoring roles. The reason they wanted to collect license fees and fines to supplement their measly budgets. No less significantly, inspectors and their bosses could collect bribes in exchange for favors. "It came down to turf warfare between departments," said Roger Skinner, a retired British regulator who advised the Chinese government on improving food safety on behalf of the World Health Organization. "If they can't enforce, they will lose revenue." Realizing they had created a muddle of competing bureaucracies, top leaders in 2003 formed the State Food and Drug Administration, named after its American counterpart, that on paper had "super-ministerial authority" to coordinate all the others that monitored the politically sensitive food and drug sphere.
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A year without 'Made in China'

A year without 'Made in China' By Sara Bongiorni BATON ROUGE, LA. - Last year, two days after Christmas, we kicked China out of the house. Not the country obviously, but bits of plastic, metal, and wood stamped with the words "Made in China." We kept what we already had, but stopped bringing any more in. The banishment was no fault of China's. It had coated our lives with a cheerful veneer of toys, gadgets, and $10 children's shoes. Sometimes I worried about jobs sent overseas or nasty reports about human rights abuses, but price trumped virtue at our house. We couldn't resist what China was selling. But on that dark Monday last year, a creeping unease washed over me as I sat on the sofa and surveyed the gloomy wreckage of the holiday. It wasn't until then that I noticed an irrefutable fact: China was taking over the place. It stared back at me from the empty screen of the television. I spied it in the pile of tennis shoes by the door. It glowed in the lights on the Christmas tree and watched me in the eyes of a doll splayed on the floor. I slipped off the couch and did a quick inventory, sorting gifts into two stacks: China and non-China. The count came to China, 25, the world, 14. Christmas, I realized, had become a holiday made by the Chinese. Suddenly I' d had enough. I wanted China out.....


Read this great article about how globalization affects our lives.

Buying China-free products a hard task

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Whether U.S. shoppers are concerned about food and product safety, set on making a political statement against outsourcing or simply intent on showing a little patriotism, they are sure to have a tough time avoiding products made in China. Chinese exports have been in the spotlight since the deaths of dogs and cats in North America attributed to tainted Chinese wheat gluten, followed by this week's recall of Chinese-made radial tires and an alert Thursday by the Food and Drug Administration,
warning about contaminated Chinese seafood. My family hit some stores to see how hard it would it be for the average consumer to pull off a 'Made in China' boycott -- even for just a week....
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Is the C6 Corvette "China Free"?

OK, we have heard it all, from lead poisoning to defective products like tires and others. Made in China is almost synomous with a WARNING LABEL. I know Corvette is made in USA but is it truely a "China Free" product? Any parts made in China? Just curious....with nearly everything is manufactured
in China these days (Like that computer you are typing on, your phone, Ipod, Television, clothes, shoes, on and on...). Almost all electronic parts are manufactured in China. Some are from Korea, Malaysia, and even a select few from the US. That's right, many of those electronic parts in your car come from China. Reuters noted that GM now buys about 32% of its parts from low-cost countries such as China. Yes, you have Chinese parts in your vette, and every other car you own...and just about everything else you purchase. If it is not manufactured in China, then some of the parts likely are.

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China-Free Christmas: A Resource List

A Resource List: "tt won't be easy - but we're going China-Free this Christmas. I've started to collect resources and I'm happy to share my finds - please let me know if you know of any other online shops or websites that have ideas on how to avoid China-made toys."

Go there..

Sign the petition telling Congress what to do

Moms Rising: "Sign the petition to tell Congress and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC): 'Testing children's products for toxic chemicals must be a priority. No more toxic toys and children's products!'"

China-Free Product from China?

This Chinese sounding clensing lotion proudly displays China-Free on its web site. How akward is that?

"Ginkgo Natural Cleansing Tissue Feature Simply cleans with a sheet of ginkgo-infused tissue. Perfect, alcohol-free cleansing action removes thick makeup and dirt while ginkgo naturally revitalizes your tired skin. * Contains 2,050 mg of Ginkgo extract "

Voice-Up: China-Free Non-Poisonous Goods

"In a recent Time magazine article,it was announced that a US-based group called 'Food for Health International' has plans to apply 'China-free' stickers on its goods.The subtext of these stickers will read ''These products won't make you sick or have harmful contaminants like melamine.' I personally think its a great idea and would welcome this little bit of help when I shop.Just recently I got to thinking about how in the world am I--or anyone else--going to tell the difference between poisoned and dangerous products and those that are not? Believe me,not all stores have plans to remove tainted products.Matter of fact,it's been reported that many grocers still carry the posioned China-made pet food that has been killing off our pets,just as there are plans by some stores to keep Mattel's toys on the shelves.Speaking of which......."