68 to 80 percent of our active pharmaceutical ingredients now come from India and China...

[Hannah Bell]

http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/12/heavy-metal-standards-usps-abernethy-explains/

Scroll to the middle of the interview...

Abernathy:

"The best information is that 68 to 80 percent of our active pharmaceutical ingredients now come from India and China. That number is debatable, but that’s not too far off…"

[Hekate]

1. That is just SO confidence-inspiring! -- Not ....

---> :sarcasm:

Hekate

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. even more ...Not inspiring:

"the FDA has an enforcement role."

[leftstreet]

2. Interesting link

Purchasers take on responsibility for testing.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

5. what's that?

[Hekate]

6. Tell us about your confidence in Chinese ingestibles, why don't you? Meanwhile...

From thousands of American pets killed last year by pet food with Chinese ingredients to tens of thousands of Chinese babies sickened by melamine in their baby formula -- melamine that has turned up here in the US in a host of products for humans of all ages -- China has proven itself to be the Wild Wild West of toxic chemistry.

You have no way of knowing where the ingredients in your foods and medicines come from if they are not labeled Made In China. Why? Because China manufactures "ingredients" -- untold numbers of ingredients that are shipped off to be assembled and labeled somewhere else. And they are really, really cheap. As a consequence, almost nothing is actually made in the US any more.

The FDA is a once-proud agency whose administration listened to the doubts of a pharmacologist/medical officer named Dr Frances Kelsey, and so prevented the ghastly tragedy of thalidomide poisoning in the US. http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2001/201_kelsey.html

But that was 1960 -- this is now. Under Bush's administration the FDA -- like the rest of the civil service -- has been gutted and filled with Bush cronies who have no credentials. Scientists' reports have been suppressed and/or rewritten; divisions have been eliminated. There's no one home when it comes to checking what goes into our food and medicines.

There is absolutely nothing racist in the above statements of fact.

Hekate

[eilen]

8. Absolutely

and don't forget the tainted Heparin. That still gives me nightmares. I feel culpable because I was giving heparin injections to my patients three times a day. That is the protocol to prevent DVT, written for every patient unless they have some know allergy. This is a horror story. Basically we have no funded FDA inspectors unless enough people die, then they send someone out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23485723">China may be source of tainted heparin
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-04-08-heparin-fda_N.htm">FDA triples death count linked to tainted heparin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/health/policy/22fda.html?pagewanted=1">U.S. Identifies Tainted Heparin in 11 Countries
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/heparin-1203.html">Conclusive evidence that tainted heparin caused allergic reactions

[old mark]

7. And meanwhile - the US Government is taking steps to prevent

consumers from filling prescriptions in Mexico or Canada (cheaper) because they are "concerned" about the quality of the drugs available from those countries...

And - the cost to the US consumer of those imported drugs has not been reduced - they are more expensive than anywhere else in the world because they are American made and we have a large overhead due to research.


Bullshit.


mark