Melamine showing up in US Candy

[Savaaha]

This is the substance that has killed thousands of pets and sickened thousands more children in China

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/10/chinese_formula07.html

Targets Domo Kun candies have also been questioned. Its important to check for powdered milk, milk products in any chinese made candies.

[Arbutus]

Oh no, not here too.

There's something that genuinely scares me about this whole powdered-milk thing. What kind of people does it take to do something like this? What kind of a businessman could think this was okay? "Cost-saving measures" can't adequately explain their motivations. This is a product meant for BABIES. You have to be PSYCHOTIC to put an industrial chemical known to cause health problems into a product meant for babies.

[Draconium]

It's also been found a LOT of other things:

FDA Press Release from 10/6/08 regarding this problem


Here's the list of what is recalled (All made by King Car Food Industrial Co.):

Mr. Brown Mandheling Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Arabica Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Blue Mountain Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Caramel Macchiato Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown French Vanilla Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Mandhling Blend instant Coffee (2-in-1)
Mr. Brown Milk Tea (3-in-1)

There's more but I'll let you see the list.


UPTON SINCLAIR! WHERE ARE YOU?!


This is insane! Our family has been careful to avoid foods from China until this is over...

[Feathertail]

I avoid anything made in China. >.>

[Kayle]

Lead, melamine, what's next?  Arsenic makes ramen noodles healthy?  Cyanide makes soda fizzier?  And we sent people to the Olympics there...

[Feathertail]

The really bad air pollution in Beijing had a negative effect on a lot of the athletes there, I'm told.

[Arbutus]

The really bad air pollution in Beijing had a negative effect on a lot of the athletes there, I'm told.

Yeah, many countries refused to show up until literally the night of the opening ceremonies in order to minimize the effect of the pollution on their athletes' lungs. And while they were there, several teams walked around all the time with surgical masks. It was not, shall we say, the public relations coup China was hoping for.

[Kayle]

I heard that they planned to postpone some events if the pollution was too bad on the day they were supposed to do that event.  Some of the atheletes in China had to run or whatever with surgical masks on.

[Kwan]

Frankly, I don't blame the Chinese factories so much as the American companies. 

1) They removed jobs from Americans in favor of overseas manufacturing
2) They failed to communicate effectively to their Chinese employees
3) They failed to care enough about quality standards to bother enforcing them
4) They failed to take responsibility for these failings

I suspect that the "Blame the Chinese" attitude is a public-relations spin that American companies are aggressively spreading to detract from their own blame in this matter.

[Arbutus]

Frankly, I don't blame the Chinese factories so much as the American companies. 

1) They removed jobs from Americans in favor of overseas manufacturing
2) They failed to communicate effectively to their Chinese employees
3) They failed to care enough about quality standards to bother enforcing them
4) They failed to take responsibility for these failings

I suspect that the "Blame the Chinese" attitude is a public-relations spin that American companies are aggressively spreading to detract from their own blame in this matter.

Do you have more information about this that you can share? I haven't heard a peep about American companies' role in this (New Zealanders, yes, Americans, no), and I don't just read the mainstream media.

[Feathertail]

I blame the American consumer. We're the ones who decided it was okay to buy from American companies when we knew they were making everything in China. And ignored everything which that entailed.

Now we're finally starting to notice. Not because we saw new prison labor reports, not because we watched what goes on in the factories, and not because we care all that much about foreigners. Because we (and our pets, earlier) are now being directly affected, in a way that we somehow found out about in between all the media filtering.

I'm not sure this speaks very highly of us. ^.^;