NEWS: Antifreeze: For Arctic-Fresh Breath!

CULTURE: Antifreeze: For Arctic-Fresh Breath!

There's this old axiom that "you get what you pay for," and it's admittedly true at some level: there's no point in pretending that a Maserati doesn't have a little more power than a Ford Fiesta. But then again, that's mechanics; since when are essentials held to such standards? Do you really need to buy that gritty organic stuff at Trader Joe's just to ensure that you aren't brushing your teeth with antifreeze? I mean, seriously, shouldn't poison-free soaps just be a given?

China this newest universal-cleaning-agent bungle loose on the world last week, and over the course of days it was seized by Nicaragua and Panama, the latter of which saw 51 deaths last month when cough syrup was uncovered with a similar surprise taste sensation. Yesterday, the offending paste was found in our own backyard, and dollar store patrons are being warned to proceed with caution.

What exactly is diethylene glycol? It's a thickening agent of sorts, and in a way it's a lot like glycerin in chemical make-up. While glycerin, however, is used to make soaps and shortening and medicines, diethylene glycerol is mostly used in polyester, antifreeze, and gasoline treatment. The thing of it is, diethylene can be cheaper to come by, and who doesn't love a bargain? It's funny how similar chemicals work, though–just a small adjustment can make something totally unfit for human consumption. As it turns out, you can't substitute H2O with H2O2, either. Who knew!

So two companies have been linked back to the manufacturing of the toothpaste, and with such reputable and legitimate-sounding names as Goldcredit International Trading and the Suzhou City Jinmao Daily Chemicals Company, I'm surprised I haven't received ten e-mails from them about discount overseas Viagra by now. Anyhow, they're all crying like they thought antifreeze agents were all right as long as the amounts are kept to a minimum, and to their credit the amount found in the toothpaste won't actually kill most people so much as inflict a nice dose of kidney and liver damage. Even so, FDA is putting its foot down by asserting that not only do such things never, ever have a place in ingestibles, but that the entire country needs to shape up and stop sending us poisoned things. The Chinese government has, on pain of trade blacklisting, sprung into action with initial steps toward put ting a recall system in place, but I maintain that their pace is rather slow for a country that doesn't enjoy people starting rumors about all their bananas being infected with SARS.

In the meantime, all I can say is stay away from the bargain-bin toothpaste with the weird Engrish on the label. Sure, it keeps your breath tasty-fresh for less, but at what cost? You can pull all the ladies you want with your delicious fresh breath, but it won't help you much when you are dead.


Before this, _DictionaryGirl_ would totally have bought a toothpaste called Dr. Cool, and then where would she be? Just another statistic. Sad. Uncool, China.

I do my best to stay away from anything made in China that aren't fireworks.

From counterfeit car bumpers that shatter upon impact and cheap brake pads that glaze and fail on the first hard stop to the recent pet food deaths to this...

Chinese manufacturing and the government that fails to oversee it is to blame for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of defective and dangerous product and countless failures in the field that result in deaths, injuries, property damage and premature failure.

When will we, the US retailing community and ultimately the US consumer, learn that you do get what you pay for? If we didn't buy this garbage up as fast as they can churn it out - I'm looking (among others) at you, Wal-Mart - there would be less incentive to lie, cheat, steal and poison in the name of profit.

Since they are neither interested in nor capable of ensuring their exports are safe, our government desperately needs to enforce strict testing standards, paid for with an excise tax on all Chinese imports.

I'm beginning to worry it's not just an accident.

It's a test.

Whats the running conspiracy theory on that angle ?

I never trust the dollar store products anyway, even less if it's something I might eat. I don't mind buying their cheap crayons or picture frames but anything that is made for consumption I pass by.

That's what happens when people want cheap things...

Truthfully, I'm not surprised to hear about this after the whole pet food fiasco. China is just out to get us I suppose.

To say that they aren't actually doing anything about it is extremely misleading. You might want to do some research for your stories. Not to mention, they just sentenced the head of their Food and Drug Administration to death for "taking bribes and dereliction of duty". True, he was arrested in 2005, long before the recent problems, but it appears that they are sending a message. You can be sure that the recent problems are a result of policy, or lack there of, developed under his watch.

The dirty Commies are trying to poison us!

However, I will still buy my tools at Harbor Freight, because they don't treat me like shit like Sears does.

They also honor their warranty better than Sears does.

Plus they have tons of stuff you'll NEVER find at Sears like vise brakes, motorcycle tire changing machines, large bench vises, shop presses, motorcycle work lifts that actually fit a motorcycle, cross-slide vises, benchtop arbor presses, and a decent assortment of metric tools.

I'd think about buying them at Sears or another American store, but they DON'T stock any of this sort of thing, so it's a choice between cheap Chinese stuff and ... let me see here... NOTHING! So I'll take the cheap Chinese stuff.

Now you do have to give it the hairy eyeball because the stuff isn't the highest quality, but then again I'm not running a machine shop, I just want to work on my motorcycle when it needs it.

The Chinese attitude is "if someone will buy it, we'll make it" including poison toothpaste.

Ooh, I see. I did do research, but hadn't found a lot on that front. I'd be happy to edit to accommodate the error.

Global Capitalism at its finest!

send production over to China for better profits for US Coporations for lower wages and defective products for the masses!

three cheers.

All it takes is a bottle of good strong alcohol and perhaps a cut of the profits for local party secretary and the police chief and you can produce whatever poison you need, use children workforce to get it mixed and label it however you want. Don't be fooled about high-profile executions - in a communist state, especially the size of China, the central government is a paper dragon and its only concern is staying in power.

Not to mention Beijing is far far away and $X000 you can get for a Barrel of poison labelled as syrup is fortune worth dying for.

My question is.......

Who would buy dollar store toothpaste? Like the 79 cent tube from wal mart isn't cheap enough?

you haven't bought toothpaste in a very, very long time have you ?

It's funny....everyone's so down on China right now, what with their businesses killing our pets and all, but read a little out of "The Jungle" to see how American meat packing companies used to put all kinds of toxic substances in their consumables. We were the "China" of a hundred years ago. In another 100 years it'll be some other country. Why? Because:

Capitalism + zero oversight = antifreeze-flavored toothpaste and sawdust-filled sausages.

Money follows the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is what makes a river crooked. -Utah Phillips

China still cool! China still cool!

Yeah, but they ostensibly have a planned economy; these sorts of stories reveal how unplanned it is.

I love this guy.

And as for this:

Maybe a third of their stuff is from China. My wrenches, for examples, are made in India (India? Yes, India.), toolbox is Taiwan, and a lot of the rest of the stuff is Cambodia. Which doesn't exactly warm the cockles of my heart, but I'm also not going to buy anything from there that can lift a vehicle high enough that it's in an excellent position to crush one of my limbs.

I guess you could test your toothpaste on your cat first to see if it contains anti-freeze.

Well, it would keep your mouth from freezing up right ?

Since they were all that was available, I went through four chinese-built jacks in a year before special-ordering a Lincoln (still made here, for now at least). What's your time worth when one of these cheap tools breaks and hurts you, or at the least rounds off what you're trying to remove and costs you hours more time getting the damaged fastener off?

Cheap garbage tools are the falsest of false economies.

The big picture is that the Chinese government artificially depresses the value of their currency, then pegs that low value to the dollar, making their products a good 30% cheaper than they would be normally.
(Yes, I'm aware they recently made a big deal about letting the Yuan float, but it's in such a narrow range it makes no difference since that range is still 30% under normal).

This makes competing with the Chinese a race to the bottom. They pay their people nothing, have little environmental, workplace or product safety regulations and generally fail to enforce the weak laws they do have. Intellectual property laws are nonexistent and counterfeiting of everything from prescription drugs to car fenders to CDs is rampant.

As you so astutely noted, the ultimate effect of cheap chinese garbage products flooding the market is that nobody will make or sell anything else after a while. The Chinese kill off all the midpriced alternatives by making the bottom quality stuff so cheap. All you have left is the high end and the vast pile of crap at the bottom.

So what if you need five Wal-Mart $19.99 dvd players to last the seven years a Japanese-made Sony would have? It comes out to the same $100 in the end... but:
You've made five trips to the store, installed five dvd players, and thrown into the landfill down the street five players' worth of packaging and four of the players themselves. In some part of China, they've used 5 times the energy to make those players and the packaging and burned the fuel to ship 5 players across the ocean.

I buy the good stuff once and keep it forever. I also fix my good stuff when it breaks if it's possible or practical. The 1958 Oster blender I got for $15 at a yard sale is all metal, completely rebuildable and has outlasted three new ones my friend bought at Target. When the original (!!!) rubber coupler broke I got a new one from Oster for $4 and installed it in 5 minutes with hand tools.

The Chinese ones were non-serviceable (cheap plastic cases glued together) and no parts were available from anyone at any price.

At some point the American buying public needs to stop buying all this disposable flimsy crap.

oooh, so theyre trying to contaminate our Purtity Of Essence, now are they?

The real question we should be asking is: how does diethelyne glycol react with fluoride?

have you ever seen a chinaman drink water? pure unfiltered water?

have you noticed i brush my teeth with only unfloridated toothpaste?

See - you're violating one of the fundamental laws of Capitalism as defined by Adam Smith in "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."

You're advocating a "guild" approach to production - high quality, high(er) price, relatively low volume. The whole point of Capitalism is that since all objects have value, the best way to increase a nation's wealth is to churn out as much of a product as possible - price be damned - so as many people as possible can use that item in whatever way they see fit, to make more items of value. They become richer for it, and the spiral linking production and wealth begins.

You're right, Capitalism is a race to the bottom with the "guilds" fulfilling the high-end niches to those who can afford them. That's the nature of the beast.

Your criticism has clearly revelaed your un-American mentality for all to see, you pinko commie. The feds should be by at any moment to pick you up.

Ta!