CHINA-FREE

DEFINITION chi-na-free adj. A term proposed for use on food labels to show that products are not made in China.

CONTEXT In light of recent health and safety scares regarding Chinese-made food and products, a U.S.-based company called Food for Health International has announced plans to put "China-free" stickers on its goods. The subtext: These products won't make you sick or have harmful contaminants like melamine.

USAGE Given recent recalls of items from toys to toothpaste, China-free labeling could catch on, though consumers would do well to remember that not all products from China are tainted and not all tainted products are from China.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Toothpaste Products Made In China

Toothpaste Products Made In China Manufacturer: Goldcredit International Enterprises Products: (MainStar America, Selective Imports, Donnamax)
* Superdent Coolmint
* Cooldent Coolmint
* Cooldent Spearmint
* Cooldent Fluoride
* Everfresh Assortment
* BrightMax
* DentaPro
* Dentakleen
* Dentakleen Junior Brand - Strawberry
* Dentakleen Junior Brand - Blueberry
Manufacturer: Gold Credit International Trading Co Products:
* Bright Max Peppermint Flavor
* Clean Rite Toothpaste
* Clean Rite Toothpaste Kit
* Oralmax Extreme Action Kit
* Oral Bright Fresh Spearmint Flavor
* DentaKleen
* DentaKleen Junior
* DentaPro Manufacturer: Suzhou City Jinmao Daily Chemicals Co. Ltd. Product: (Gold City Enterprises/New Star, Miami, FL)
* ShiR Fresh Mint Fluoride Paste
* ShiRFresh Toothpaste
* ShiRFresh Mint
* ShiRFresh Ice Mint Manufacturer Shanghai Light Industrial Products: Freshh Spearmint (Following up with Mandalay International, Ogden, UT) MFR Unknown: Crescent Toothpaste (Dollar Ocean #4, Wheaton, MD and H&Y Trading Co, Capitol Heights, MD) Naturabella nino Dusanzo (Certejenas Inc.,>Cidra, PR)Manufacturer: Suzhou Qing Xin Daily Chemical Co., Ltd.
* Pacific Fluoride Toothpaste
* Pacific Fluoride Gel Toothpaste Manufacturer: Guangdong Wellknown Ceramics Co., Ltd.
* Tian Qi Toothpaste FDA has identified the following counterfeit product:
Manufacturer: Unknown
* counterfeit toothpaste falsely packaged as "Colgate," manufactured in
South Africa
* counterfeit tooth gel falsely packaged as "Colgate," manufactured in South Africa (may not contain DEG)

Saturday, September 1, 2007

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.
Read Full Article

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....
Read full acoount

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.

Join the discussion...

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......."

Friday, August 31, 2007

Menu Foods Looses Over China Made Ingredients

The fallout from a tainted pet food scandal hit Menu Foods Income Fund again on Tuesday, when its biggest customer said it would stop buying some of its products in the fourth quarter. The unnamed customer, whose total purchases made up nearly 10.8% of Menu Food's sales volume in 2006, said it would stop buying 'loaf' products from the company beginning Oct. 1, Menu Foods said in a statement. Earlier this year, the same customer said it would stop purchases of other Menu Foods products. "Menu Foods is disappointed in the reaction of this customer to the pet food recall. The intentional tainting of product inputs from a third party supplier in China was a fraudulent act that victimized many pet food manufacturers, customers and consumers," Paul Henderson, Menu's president and chief executive, said in the statement. Menu Foods was one of almost a dozen North American pet food manufacturers that had used vegetable proteins contaminated in China with melamine or related compounds. In March, the company recalled millions of cans of tainted pet food manufactured at two U.S. plants after reports of some animal deaths. Menu Foods' units were down 50, or 16%, at $2.50 on the Toronto Stock Exchange at 2:30 p.m. ET.
(c) Reuters 2007 Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Counterfeit drinking water found in Beijing

National Post
BEIJING -- Up to half of the water used in water coolers across China's capital could be "fake," or not as pure as its manufacturers claim, state media said on Tuesday of the latest in a series of health scares. The bogus water was either tap water or purified water of miscellaneous small brands poured into empty barrels sealed with quality standard marks, the China Daily said, quoting Liu Xiaoyun, the Beijing sales manager of a of a bottled water brand.

Full Story
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=0c53aaf3-3686-4e4d-ae59-86fb52d6a05f&k=75728

Art Set in Toys'R" Us Recall

Toys "R" Us recalls China-made wooden art sets

By Nicole Maestri
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Toys "R" Us Inc is recalling 27,000 wooden coloring cases that were made in China and sold under its Imaginarium brand because lead was found in the printed ink on the art set's outer packaging and in some watercolor paints. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the recall on Thursday, said the 213-piece coloring set includes crayons, pastels, colored pencils and water colors that were packaged in a light tan wooden carrying case.
The printed ink on the outer packaging of the case contains lead, and some of the black watercolor paint contains excessive levels of lead, the agency said. The cases were sold at the toy retailer's stores and on its Web site from October 2006 through August 2007 for about $20. Of the 27,000 cases that were recalled, Toys "R" Us said 8,300 were sold to customers during the recall period.

Read full article
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWNAS317620070830

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Toy Story

Cookie Monster is quarantined. Elmo doesn't play well with others. Explorers Dora and Diego are grounded. The popular characters are among the 83 types of plastic preschool Chinese-made toys Fisher-Price recalled this month because they may contain lead paint. When ingested, lead can cause learning disabilities and behavioral problems. The recall involves 967,000 toys sold in the United States between May and August under the Fisher-Price line of Mattel. Learning that Big Bird could be toxic is like finding out your longtime baby sitter had a one-on-one confrontation with Chris Hansen on "Catch a Predator." You thought you were a cautious parent.
( read more at http://savannahnow.com/node/341373 )

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

How Not To Invest In CHINA

China's economy is expanding at the fastest pace in more than a decade. It seems at first like an opportunity not to be wasted, and anyone who has owned Chinese shares during the past two years has a lot to show for it. But one veteran manager of Asian portfolios warns that investors buying China today may be wasting money.
Investors in China are anticipating a lot, said Mark Headley, president of Matthews International Capital, a San Francisco firm specializing in Asia. What they hope for almost certainly is more than corporate China will be able to deliver.
"Shares are very expensive," he said. "There's wild, bullish sentiment practically everywhere in the Chinese realm. It's all going to end badly. It usually does."
Two developments may hasten the demise. One is ...

Need We Say More?




Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Buy American Here

http://www.buyamerican.com
http://www.usamade.com
http://www.homemadeinamerica.com
http://www.madeintheusa.com
http://www.stillmadeintheusa.com
http://buyamerican.com
http://www.usstuff.com

Certified 100% China Free

It was going to happen sooner or later. With the backlash against China quality and product safety, some enterprising company was bound to capitalize on consumer fear against Chinese products. Well, now someone has. Just as many CPG providers are labeling their food, pharmacy and now even clothing products "organic" and "fair trade" -- don't get me started on that one -- one dietary supplements provider is certifying that its products are 100% China Free right on the label! Read here...

FDA Rejected Product list by Country

You want to import WHAT? This is the list of products attempted for import to United States but rejected because of FDA testing already in place. It only covers some products that are shippped, but I'm glad anyway that FDA tested them...

Monday, August 27, 2007

Vitamin-C

If you taking vitamins since you were little, you may have wasted your time all along. Learn healthy ways to improve your chemistry while taking vitamin-C made in China, Or should you switch your vitamins tomorrow? Read on...