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.
BACK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: The planned transit by the ‘Baden-Wuerttemberg’ and the ‘Frankfurt am Main’ would be the German Navy’s first passage since 2002 Two German warships are set to pass through the Taiwan Strait in the middle of this month, becoming the first German naval vessels to do so in 22 years, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday. Reuters last month reported that the warships, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main, were awaiting orders from Berlin to sail the Strait, prompting a rebuke to Germany from Beijing. Der Spiegel cited unspecified sources as saying Beijing would not be formally notified of the German ships’ passage to emphasize that Berlin views the trip as normal. The German Federal Ministry of Defense declined to comment. While
‘UPHOLDING PEACE’: Taiwan’s foreign minister thanked the US Congress for using a ‘creative and effective way’ to deter Chinese military aggression toward the nation The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, aimed at deterring Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by threatening to publish information about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials’ “illicit” financial assets if Beijing were to attack. The act would also “restrict financial services for certain immediate family of such officials,” the text of the legislation says. The bill was introduced in January last year by US representatives French Hill and Brad Sherman. After remarks from several members, it passed unanimously. “If China chooses to attack the free people of Taiwan, [the bill] requires the Treasury secretary to publish the illicit
A senior US military official yesterday warned his Chinese counterpart against Beijing’s “dangerous” moves in the South China Sea during the first talks of their kind between the commanders. Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions, but they have sought to re-establish regular military-to-military talks in a bid to prevent flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and Wu Yanan (吳亞男), head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command, talked via videoconference. Paparo “underscored the importance
The US House of Representatives yesterday unanimously passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, which aims to disincentivize Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by cutting Chinese leaders and their family members off from the US financial system if Beijing acts against Taiwan. The bipartisan bill, which would also publish the assets of top Chinese leaders, was cosponsored by Republican US Representative French Hill, Democratic US Representative Brad Sherman and seven others. If the US president determines that a threat against Taiwan exists, the bill would require the US Department of the Treasury to report to Congress on funds held by certain members of the
RSS