Criminal charges were filed on Thursday against four executives at two US companies who imported toothpaste from China that contained a poison used in antifreeze, the city attorney in Los Angeles said in a statement.
The chemical, diethylene glycol, which is banned from certain ingestible items in the US, was discovered in almost 1 million tubes of toothpaste in May and led to recalls in 34 countries. The chemical, commonly used in antifreeze and as a solvent, can lead to kidney damage and liver disease.
The toothpaste ended up being distributed in the US in prisons, luxury hotels, hospitals and discount stores. It was one of the earliest global alerts to broader manufacturing problems in China that allowed scores of tainted products, including toys, children's jewelry and pet food to end up on store shelves.
The chemical in the toothpaste was used instead of glycerin, which is more expensive.
The Los Angeles city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, working with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), filed a criminal complaint against Los Angeles-based importers Vernon Sales Inc and Selective Imports Corp.
Selective Imports president Frahad Nazarian and vice president Yones Ghermezi were charged with two counts of receiving, selling and delivering the tainted products.
Vernon Sales president Kamyab Toofer and vice president Pejman Mossayi were charged with 14 counts of receiving, selling and delivering an adulterated drug.
The case is the first instance of criminal charges being filed in the US against any party in the toothpaste scare and comes after a lawsuit filed in Missouri against a US company that imported tainted ingredients for pet food.
"This is just going to keep happening every day," said Richard Cellini, vice president of Integrity Interactive, a consulting firm in Waltham, Massachusetts. "It's becoming clear that law enforcement isn't afraid to act."
The executives are accused of receiving, selling and distributing Cooldent toothpaste containing diethylene glycol.
In May, after federal health officials discovered that tainted Chinese toothpaste had entered the US, they warned that it would be found largely in discount stores. As it turned out, nearly 1 million tubes turned up in hospitals, prisons and elsewhere.
At the time, officials of the FDA said that even small amounts of the ingredient had a "low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury" for children and people with kidney or liver disease.
Much of the tainted toothpaste entered the US through the port of Long Beach, California. Selective Imports sold about 78,000 tubes of the toothpaste from 2005 to last year.
There have been no deaths reported from the use of the toothpaste, but Panamanian investigators have concluded that 174 people were poisoned -- and at least 115 died -- after using cold medicine from China containing the same chemical.
Vernon Sales distributed the toothpaste to more businesses than Selective Imports during the time frame of the city attorney's investigation, a spokesman for the city attorney said.
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