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FDA warns about cold medicines for babies

Children under age 2 should not be given over-the-counter drugs

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20296649/

 

WASHINGTON - The government is warning parents not to give cough and cold medicines to children under 2 without a doctor’s order, part of an overall review of the products’ safety and effectiveness for youngsters.

Amid questions about benefits and risks, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday its Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee will meet Oct. 18-19 to discuss the use of cough and cold drugs by children.

The FDA issued a public health advisory that cited serious adverse effects linked to children — particularly those 2 and younger — who have received too great a dose of over-the-counter medications for coughs and colds.

Parents should carefully follow directions for use that come with a medication, the FDA said. Other recommendations in the advisory included:

• Do not use cough and cold products in children under 2 unless given specific directions to do so by a health care provider.
• Do not give children medicine that is packaged and made for adults. Use only products marked for use in babies, infants or children, sometimes called “pediatric” use.
• Cough and cold medicines come in different strengths. If unsure about the right product for a child, ask a health care provider.
• If other medicines, whether over-the-counter or prescription, are being given to a child, the child’s health care provider should review and approve their combined use.
• Read all of the information in the “Drug Facts” box on the package label to know the active ingredients and the warnings.
• For liquid products, parents should use the measuring device that is packaged with each medicine formulation and is marked to deliver the recommended dose. A kitchen teaspoon or tablespoon
 
 

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Cheap air travel 'is spreading deadly diseases'

By Matthew Moore

2007 08 23 

People are at greater risk of contracting potentially lethal infectious diseases because of the boom in international air travel, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned.   New diseases are emerging at the "historically unprecedented rate of one per year", and failures in international co-operation are putting lives at risk, according to a new report.

Centuries-old threats such as influenza, malaria and tuberculosis are thriving due to mutations and rising resistance, while deadly new diseases threaten new worldwide epidemics.

"Today's highly mobile, interdependent and interconnected world provides myriad opportunities for the rapid spread of infectious diseases, and radionuclear and toxic threats," the report warns.

"An outbreak or epidemic in any one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an imminent threat somewhere else."

The WHO is calling on countries to report potentially dangerous health emergencies more quickly, and be more willing to share scientific knowledge of new infections.

The report highlighted two recent failures of international intelligence sharing that could have put lives at risk.

Earlier this year, American officials tracked the movements of a US lawyer believed to have a highly dangerous form of tuberculosis as he travelled around Europe, but failed to inform the WHO or the countries he visited.

As a result more than 127 people were exposed to the man on two trans-Atlantic flights. Eventually it was confirmed that he had a less serious form of the disease.

The second instance is an on-going row with Indonesia over the country's failure to provide H5N1 bird flu samples to the WHO to help develop a vaccine for the disease.

Jakarta has instead signed deals with pharmaceutical firms to send them the samples in return for cheap access to any resulting drugs.

"No single country – however capable, wealthy or technologically advanced – can alone prevent, detect and respond to all public health threats," the report warns.

According to the report "A Safer Future", there have been more than 1,100 outbreaks of infectious diseases - including cholera, polio and bird flu - over the last five years.

There are 39 new pathogens that were unknown a generation ago, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola and Sars.

"It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, another Sars, sooner or later," the report says.

 

 

 

 

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Neem toothpaste contains high levels of bacteria

 

Canoe.ca

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/08/24/4444100-cp.html

TORONTO (CP) - Health Canada is warning that a toothpaste from India that was earlier discovered to contain a chemical found in antifreeze also contains high levels of harmful bacteria.

The department is warning that Neem Active Toothpaste with Calcium, made by Calcutta Chemical Co. Ltd. in India, should not be used.

It says ingesting the product could trigger fever, urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

The warning notes that while toothpaste isn't meant to be swallowed, young children often do so while brushing their teeth.

Children and people with weakened immune systems would be at the highest risk of negative side-effects from using the toothpaste.

Health Canada notes that Neem Active Toothpaste isn't approved for sale in Canada.

Late last month Health Canada warned Canadians not to use the toothpaste because it had been found to contain unacceptable levels of diethylene glycol or DEG, a product used in the making of antifreeze.

 

 

 

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Fake diabetic kit alert

 

http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/ff80808114994add01149976dd9b000f_Fake_diabetic_kit_alert.do.html

 

2007 08 24

 

 

By Mata Press Service

Fake diabetic kits manufactured in China to take sensitive measurements of blood sugar levels were imported into Canada and used by millions of people in North America, according to recently unsealed court documents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The potentially dangerous counterfeits of the OneTouch Test Strip sold by Johnson & Johnson (J & J) LifeScan unit surfaced in American and Canadian pharmacies last year, according to the U.S. court documents.

A global hunt by J & J – the world’s largest consumer- health products maker – tracked the production of the fakes to a company based in Shanghai, China. The company Halson Pharmaceutical, which has been shut down, also made pregnancy, HIU and Tuberculosis test kits.

Its owner Henry Fu has been arrested and jailed in China. The existence of the fakes came to light after 15 diabetic patients complained of faulty results last September.

Tipped off by J&J, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide consumer alert in October without disclosing the link to China, a news agency reported. The trail, initiated by consumer complaints, first led detectives to 700 pharmacies where the products were sold, then to eight US wholesalers and then to two importers, one in Las Vegas and another in Canada. While no injuries were reported, inaccurate test readings may lead a diabetic to inject the wrong amount of insulin, causing harm or death, the agency said. The at-home diabetes test is used by more than 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada.

The court filings disclose that China is the source of about one million phony test strips that have turned up in at least 35 US states as well as Canada, Greece, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

“The source was from China, through Canada, to the United States,” said Steven Gutman, director of the office of in-vitro diagnostic devices and evaluation at the FDA in Rockville, Maryland. “As far as we can tell, the counterfeiter has been put out of business in the United States.”

The court documents reveal, for the first time, a worldwide distribution chain discovered by investigators hired by J&J.

Records seized from the importers show the counterfeit strips were bought from Henry Fu’s company, Halson Pharmaceutical, which according to its internet site, is based in Shanghai.

Halson’s website says the company distributes and manufactures medical supplies, such as syringes, and is run by Fu who, according to a court order, is also known as Su Zhi Yong. Fu was arrested by mainland authorities and remains in prison, awaiting resolution of his case in the People’s Court of Shanghai.

The other importer from China, according to court documents, is a Montreal company known as Zoe Diagnostics, owned by Alexander Vega. J&J sued Vega in both Brooklyn and Quebec, where a raid seized counterfeit products from a storage locker.

Investigators linked Vega to Henry Fu from seized e-mails, purchase orders and wire transfers of money.

While the pharmaceutical sleuths were tracking Fu, LifeScan Canada issued warnings about the existence of the fakes.

“If you use, recommend, distribute, or sell OneTouch® Brand Test Strips, we want to make you aware that we have recently become aware of several incidents of counterfeit OneTouch® Ultra® and OneTouch® (Basic®/Profile®) Test Strips in the United States.

Although LifeScan has not received reports of counterfeit test strips being sold at Canadian retail stores, we are taking precautionary measures and warning Canadians in case these products are present in Canada. These counterfeit test strips being sold in the United States are labelled as being intended for use with various models of LifeScan’s OneTouch Brand Blood Glucose Monitors used by people with diabetes to measure their blood glucose1.”

Fake medicines are a US$32 billion global business, says the World Health Organization, and the FDA says it ran 54 counterfeit investigations last year, almost double the year before.

An estimated two million Canadians have diabetes and the number is expected to hit three million by 2010.

Aboriginal people are three to five times more likely than the general population to develop diabetes while   77% of new Canadians come from populations that are at higher risk for diabetes. These include people of Hispanic, Asian, South Asian or African descent.

China, the biggest exporter of consumer products, has created a series of worldwide consumer scares this year ranging from contaminated toothpaste to drug-tainted seafood. The communist country executed its former chief drug regulator last month for taking bribes and the nation said it will take five years to stamp out counterfeiting.

More recently Mattel Inc, the world’s biggest toymaker, said it is recalling 18.2 million China-made Barbie dolls and other products with magnets children risk swallowing.

China reeling from the bad publicity stressed its cracking down on pharma-industry crime.

This month Chinese police said it arrested 15 members of a suspected counterfeit drug gang.

According to reports by China’s Xinhua News Agency, the gang allegedly either bought fake drugs and repackaged them, or manufactured them, using materials such as water and starch.

Police seized counterfeit versions of 67 types of drugs produced by 53 companies, including 10,000 doses of rabies vaccine, 20,250 bottles of an injectable cardiovascular drug and 211 bottles of blood protein.

As part of the effort to clean up its act, China has also finally withdrawn the business license of the notorious Taixing Glycerin Factory and shut down all its premises.

It is alleged that the firm exported a product consisting of 15 per cent diethylene glycol (DEG) - a poison used in anti-freeze and as a solvent which can cause kidney failure - among other substances, and fraudulently passing it off as 99.5 per cent pure glycerin.

Glycerin is used as a sweetener in some medicines and Taixing’s allegedly ‘fraudulent glycerin’ mixture ended up in medicines in Panama last year. Over 50 people were reported to have died as a result of taking cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, and calamine lotion contaminated with DEG.

Other facilities implicated in the production of unsafe consumable non-drug products were also shut down as part of the latest crackdown.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     

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This article was reported by Walt Bogdanich, Jake Hooker and Andrew W. Lehren and written by Mr. Bogdanich.

MILAN — In January, Honor International Pharmtech was accused of shipping counterfeit drugs into the United States. Even so, the Chinese chemical company — whose motto is “Thinking Much of Honor” — was openly marketing its products in October to thousands of buyers here at the world’s biggest trade show for pharmaceutical ingredients.

Other Chinese chemical companies made the journey to the annual show as well, including one manufacturer recently accused by American authorities of supplying steroids to illegal underground labs and another whose representative was arrested at the 2006 trade show for patent violations. Also attending were two exporters owned by China’s government that had sold poison mislabeled as a drug ingredient, which killed nearly 200 people and injured countless others in Haiti and in Panama.

Yet another chemical company, Orient Pacific International, reserved an exhibition booth in Milan, but its owner, Kevin Xu, could not attend. He was in a Houston jail on charges of selling counterfeit medicine for schizophrenia, prostate cancer, blood clots and Alzheimer’s disease, among other maladies.

While these companies hardly represent all of the nearly 500 Chinese exhibitors, more than from any other country, they do point to a deeper problem: Pharmaceutical ingredients exported from China are often made by chemical companies that are neither certified nor inspected by Chinese drug regulators, The New York Times has found.

Because the chemical companies are not required to meet even minimal drug-manufacturing standards, there is little to stop them from exporting unapproved, adulterated or counterfeit ingredients. The substandard formulations made from those ingredients often end up in pharmacies in developing countries and for sale on the Internet, where more Americans are turning for cheap medicine.

In Milan, The Times identified at least 82 Chinese chemical companies that said they made and exported pharmaceutical ingredients — yet not one was certified by the State Food and Drug Administration in China, records show. Nonetheless, the companies were negotiating deals at the pharmaceutical show, where suppliers wooed customers with live music, wine and vibrating chairs.

One of them was the Wuxi Hexia Chemical Company. When The Times showed Yan Jiangying, a top Chinese drug regulator, a list of 186 products being advertised by the company, including active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished drugs, Ms. Yan said, “This is definitely against the law.”

Yet in China, chemical manufacturers that sell drug ingredients fall into a regulatory hole. Pharmaceutical companies are regulated by the food and drug agency. Chemical companies that make products as varied as fertilizer and industrial solvents are overseen by other agencies. The problem arises when chemical companies cross over into drug ingredients. “We have never investigated a chemical company,” said Ms. Yan, deputy director of policy and regulation at the State Food and Drug Administration. “We don’t have jurisdiction.”

China’s health officials have known of this regulatory gap since at least the mid-1990s, when a chemical company sold a tainted ingredient that killed nearly 100 children in Haiti. But Chinese regulatory agencies have failed to cooperate to stop chemical companies from exporting drug products.

In 2006, at least 138 Panamanians died or were disabled after another Chinese chemical company sold the same poisonous ingredient, diethylene glycol, which was mixed into cold medicine.

China has an estimated 80,000 chemical companies, and the United States Food and Drug Administration does not know how many sell ingredients used in drugs consumed by Americans.

The Times examined thousands of companies selling products on major business-to-business Internet trading sites and found more than 1,300 chemical companies offering pharmaceutical ingredients. How many others sell drug ingredients but don’t advertise this way on the Web is not known.

If the Milan show is any guide, most, if not all, are not certified by China’s drug authorities.

China exports drug ingredients to customers in 150 countries, said Sun Dongliang, a Chinese trade official who helped organize his country’s Milan exhibitors. Many suppliers have passed inspections by drug authorities and sell active pharmaceutical ingredients, or A.P.I.’s, of high quality, buyers say.

“Sometimes you can just have your lunch on the floor of the factory because it’s so clean and so perfect, sometimes much better than in Europe,” said Jean-François Quarre, a French drug company official who had a booth in Milan. But Mr. Quarre cautioned that he has seen the other side as well. “It’s frightening.”

At their worst, uncertified chemical companies contribute to China’s notoriety as the world’s biggest supplier of counterfeit drugs, which include unauthorized copies as well as substandard, even harmful, formulations. “Underregulated manufacturers are increasingly becoming the source of A.P.I.’s used in the production of counterfeit medicine,” R. John Theriault, until recently Pfizer’s head of global security, said in a statement to Congress.

Because United States drug regulators require pharmaceutical suppliers to meet high standards, the American supply chain is among the world’s safest. But as China’s chemical suppliers multiply, Congressional investigators are questioning the F.D.A.’s ability to protect consumers.

Even some Chinese chemical companies recognize their limitations in making pharmaceuticals.

“We don’t have the resources and means to produce medicine,” said Gu Jinfeng, a salesman for Changzhou Watson Fine Chemical. “The bar for producing chemicals is pretty low.”

Even so, Watson Chemical advertises that it makes active pharmaceutical ingredients. But Mr. Gu said he would export them only to countries with lower standards than China, or if “we can earn really good profits.”

A Trail of Steroids

Just days before the Milan trade show, United States officials made an announcement that brought home the global reach and attendant dangers of China’s expanding chemical industry. The officials disclosed that they had dismantled a 27-state underground network for steroids and human growth hormone, arresting 124 people in “Operation Raw Deal.”

The supply trail almost always led to China. Thirty-seven companies there supplied virtually all of the bulk chemicals, federal officials said.

Of the 37 suspect companies, all but one unnamed by the American authorities, The Times identified eight. Records show that six are uncertified chemical companies, including Hunan Steroid, which marketed its products at the Milan convention.

“Just want to see the old customers and develop the new market,” said Sun Xueqin, a deputy export manager for Hunan Steroid. Ms. Sun said the company sold raw pharmaceutical ingredients in Europe and America and more advanced pharmaceutical ingredients in India, among other places.

Later, another Hunan official, Huang Zili, said the company did not sell to the United States, and declined to comment on the government’s contention that Hunan was a supplier of bodybuilding drugs. Hunan has not been charged with any crime.

As serious as the accusations are in Operation Raw Deal, health experts say they believe that counterfeit drugs, particularly those sold on the Internet, pose a greater threat to a broader segment of the American public.

“The facts are irrefutable,” Mr. Theriault, the former Pfizer official, told Congress. “The importation of counterfeit, infringing, misbranded and unapproved pharmaceutical products in the United States is increasing exponentially.” Pfizer makes Viagra, one of the drugs most often counterfeited.

Finding uncertified companies feeding the market is not difficult. Orient Pacific International, the Milan registrant whose owner did not show up, advertised that it makes and exports pharmaceutical ingredients to “worldwide famous medical companies.” The owner, Mr. Xu, is accused of selling counterfeit medicine to treat ailments like cancer, mental illness and heart disease, according to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or I.C.E.

Mr. Xu shipped drugs to an Internet pharmacy, investigators say. But he also penetrated the highly regulated supply chain of legitimate distributors in Europe, said David A. Faulconer, a customs official. Acting on tips from large drug companies, federal officials devised a plan to stop him from doing the same in the United States.

Posing as a buyer, an investigator for the immigration and customs agency met Mr. Xu in Bangkok on March 6. Mr. Xu gave him “detailed suggestions for transshipment and smuggling techniques to evade United States Customs detection,” federal records show.

After investigators bought multiple shipments of counterfeit drugs, Mr. Xu traveled to Houston “to consummate an agreement for widespread distribution of his counterfeit products in the United States,” according to an affidavit filed in federal court. Federal agents arrested Mr. Xu, who has pleaded not guilty.

Another company exhibiting in Milan, Honor International Pharmtech, was also the subject of a customs investigation. In January, agents seized 3,041 fake Viagra pills sent by the company to a DHL shipping hub in Wilmington, Ohio, according to customs.

The shipment, disguised as grape seed extract, was destined for an Internet pharmacy in Central America, said agents who requested anonymity because the investigation continues.

“We do make grape seed extract,” the company’s managing director, Nie An, said in a telephone interview. He denied shipping counterfeit Viagra, but he acknowledged other indiscretions: making false advertising claims, using another company’s import-export license and creating a fake corporate name.

“We don’t really have a factory,” Mr. Nie said, even though he advertised that he did. Honor International is just a trading company, he said, adding, “As a trading company, saying you can manufacture attracts business. It was fake advertising.”

The Times found several other companies posing as manufacturers, thereby obscuring a drug’s provenance. In a recent joint statement, chemical associations in the United States and Europe cautioned that globalization has led to a rise in complexity in supply chains, “increasing the potential for contamination, mislabeling or substitution.”

Pharmaceutical ingredients can pass through three or four trading companies, none of which check their quality. The ultimate manufacturer may not realize the ingredients came from an uncertified chemical company.

Mr. Nie, for example, said he markets Viagra’s main ingredient, sildenafil, through a partnership with a chemical company in a distant region that he has never visited. “We met them at a trade fair,” he said. “This company didn’t even have a booth at the fair. They were standing outside the entrance to the exhibition center, and they handed us a flier with a menu of their products.”

He said he was trying to the reach the factory, which has no Web site, to fill a Croatian company’s order.

“Our main markets are in Latin America — Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay,” he said. “A little in Canada, a little in the United States. In Europe, we export to Germany, Russia, Italy.”

But Mr. Nie faces an uncertain future. He said that Chinese investigators had recently visited his office, and that they knew about the seizure in Ohio.

Viagra is hardly the only drug that companies try to copy. The French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis grew weary of watching other companies sell knockoffs of its new diet drug, Acomplia, and alerted French authorities that three Chinese companies were marketing their own version of the product at the 2006 pharmaceutical ingredient trade show, held in Paris. Six Chinese company officials were arrested.

One of those arrested in Paris was Jin Lijie, managing director of the Wuxi Hexia Chemical Company. Still, Wuxi Hexia showed up in Milan in 2007 selling a line of pharmaceutical ingredients.

Its representatives declined to be interviewed in Milan, or at its offices in the boomtown of Wuxi. “We are all young college graduates and we are still learning about the market,” said an employee named Du Yanqun.

Factories on the Yangtze

A good place to find companies selling uncertified drug ingredients is Changzhou in the Yangtze delta, where the raw materials for chemical production are readily available and easily transported by canals and roads.

Several factories there sent representatives to Milan, including the Changzhou Kangrui Chemical Company. It makes pharmaceutical ingredients in an old converted steel plant. “I’m afraid it will leave you with a bad impression,” said Zhou Ladi, a sales representative, as she gave a tour. She said Kangrui Chemical hopes to move into a new plant by early 2009.

“As long as we don’t export products that are under patent in other countries, the government encourages us to export,” she said.

To help find customers overseas, smaller factories enlist the services of people like Bian Jingya, export manager for a trading company called the Changzhou Wejia Chemical Company.

Ms. Bian said chemical companies are involved in all phases of drug manufacturing, including making finished products. Some, she said, “are under patent in other countries.”

Ms. Bian, who was also in Milan, said the government should spell out more clearly what companies may and may not do. “If you want to be regulated, they will regulate you,” she said. “If you don’t want to be regulated, they don’t.”

The Chinese drug agency does not oversee the making of pharmaceutical raw materials, called intermediates, which are the building blocks for active pharmaceutical ingredients. “It is unrealistic for us to certify all factories that make intermediates and regulate them like medicine products,” said Ms. Yan, the agency official. But if companies make active ingredients, a more refined product, then they must be regulated by drug authorities, she said.

When The Times pointed out that many uncertified chemical companies openly advertise active ingredients, Ms. Yan said that was illegal. “If there are in fact chemical companies that are making drugs without certification then this is very serious,” she said. “These companies are not qualified to make medicine. They make chemicals.”

Wang Siqing, managing director of the Changzhou Yabang Pharmaceutical Company, estimated that uncertified chemical companies make half the active pharmaceutical ingredients sold in China. “The stuff produced by chemical plants is clearly counterfeit medicine, but they aren’t investigating,” Mr. Wang said in an interview at his office. “This has been happening in a regulatory void.” He added that most chemical company exports go to unregulated markets in Africa or South America. “That’s not to say these products don’t enter the United States through these other countries,” he said.

To find out how well American consumers are being protected from unsafe imported drugs, investigators from the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently accompanied F.D.A. officials on inspections of drug plants in China and India.

In a letter to the F.D.A. commissioner, the committee said that the agency was unable to provide such basic information as the number of firms exporting to the United States, and that overseas F.D.A. inspectors lacked necessary logistical support. A House hearing on F.D.A. oversight of foreign drug manufacturers is scheduled for Thursday.

“China alone has more than 700 firms making drug products for the U.S., yet the F.D.A. has resources to conduct only about 20 inspections a year in China,” said Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The F.D.A. said it would answer the committee’s questions at the hearing.

Poisonings in Haiti

United States officials learned of problems with China’s chemical companies in the mid-1990s while investigating the fatal poisonings in Haiti. Chinese authorities took no action against the uncertified chemical company that made the poison, diethylene glycol, or the giant state-owned trader, Sinochem International Chemicals, that exported it.

A decade later another state-owned trading company, CNSC Fortune Way, exported the diethylene glycol — also from an uncertified chemical company — that ended up in the deadly Panamanian cold medicine in 2006.

Chinese officials have known for years that uncertified chemical companies are producing active pharmaceutical ingredients. In 2004 the Chinese drug authority’s newspaper cited complaints that some licensed companies “affiliate” with unlicensed ones to hide their illegal purchases, while others buy only a token amount from certified suppliers to pass inspection. “The impact of chemical products on the bulk pharmaceutical market hints at a much larger problem: a huge hole in drug safety,” the drug agency publication stated.

Since the Panama poisonings, China is considering ways to corral the chemical industry. At Panama’s request, Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, has pressed the Chinese government to step up regulation of chemical companies selling pharmaceutical ingredients.

American and Chinese health officials held their first high-level meeting in May, and hope to sign a memorandum of agreement in December. “The Chinese have finally come to the realization that their regulatory system needs repair,” said William Steiger, director of international affairs for Mr. Leavitt’s agency. But meaningful change will be difficult. Chinese authorities may not have enough investigators to weed out the many small chemical companies that are making drug ingredients.

And efforts to close the regulatory gap must overcome one particularly thorny issue: some uncertified companies accused of selling counterfeit drugs are owned by the government itself.

 

=====================================
 
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Subject: Anyone with Children or Grandchildren, Please Read (Not a Joke)

Hi I know this is a little scary but wouldn't want any child to get hurt so am sending this along to you. 

 

I know you all have little ones.

 

Please read and forward if you have or know anyone who has children or grandchildren .....

 

Ok, I'm forwarding this to everyone so they don't make the same mistake.

These burns were caused by a Magic Eraser sponge.
The mom in this case let her kids erase their crayon marks off the walls  and never even thought the sponges would have this kind of chemical in them that would cause this kind of burn or even hurt them.
Learn from her mistake. Pass this along to anyone who has kids or grandchildren.

The photo is of Kolby - 24 hours after being burned by a Magic Eraser sponge. It was much worse the day before.

 

Here is the email we received -

One of my five year old's favorite chores around the house is cleaning scuff marks off the walls, doors,
and baseboards with either an Easy Eraser pad, or the real deal, a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. 
I remember reading the box, wondering what the 'Magic' component was that cleaned crayon off my walls with ease.
No ingredients were listed and absolutely no warnings were on the box, other than 'Do not ingest.'

 

My package of the Scotchbrite Easy Erasers didn't have a warning either;
and since my child knew not to eat the sponges and keep them out of reach of his little brother and sister, it was a chore I happily let him do.

If I had known that both brands (and others like them) contain a harmful alkaline  or 'base' chemical (opposite of acid on the pH scale) that can burn your skin, I never would have let my little boy handle them.
As you can see from the picture, when the Scotchbrite Easy Eraser was rubbed against his face and chin,
he received severe chemical burns. At first, I thought he was being dramatic.

I picked him up, put him on the counter top and washed his face with soap and water.
He was screaming in pain. I put some lotion on his face - more agony.
I had used a Magic Eraser to remove magic marker from my own knuckles a while back  and I couldn't understand why he was suddenly in pain.
Then, almost immediately, the large, shiny, blistering red marks started to spread across his cheeks and chin.
I quickly searched Google.com <http://google.com/>  for 'Magic Eraser Burn' and turned up several results. I was shocked.
These completely innocent looking white foam sponges can burn you?
I called our pediatrician, and of course got sent to voice mail.
I hung up and called the hospital and spoke to an emergency room nurse.

She told me to call Poison Control.
The woman at Poison Control said she was surprised nobody had sued these companies yet  and walked me through the process of neutralizing the alkaline to stop my son's face from continually burning more every second.

 

I had already, during my frantic phone calling, tried patting some numbing antibiotic cream on his cheeks,
and later some Aloe Vera gel - both resulted in screams of pain.
The Poison Control tech had me fill a bathtub with warm water, lay my son into it, cover him with a towel to keep him warm and then use a soft washcloth to rinse his face
and chin with cool water for a continuous 20 minutes.  
My son calmed down immediately. He told me how good it felt.
I gave him a dose of Tylenol and after the twenty minutes was up, he got dressed in his Emergency Room doctor Halloween costume  and off we went to the hospital.  

They needed to make sure the chemical burn had stopped burning,
and examine his face to determine if the burn would need to be debrided  (from my fuzzy recollection of hospital work, this means removing loose tissue from a burn location).

My son was pretty happy at the hospital, they were very nice and called him 'Doctor'  and let him examine some of their equipment. The water had successfully stopped the burning and helped soothe a lot of the pain.
I'm sure Tylenol was helping too. They sent us home with more Aloe Vera gel, Polysporin antibiotic cream,
and some other numbing creams. By the time we got home, my son was crying again.

I tried applying some of the creams but he cried out in pain. Water seemed to be what worked the best.
After a rough night, I took the above photo in the morning. He was swollen and wouldn't move his lips very much.

The skin on his cheeks was taut. Today he is doing much better. The burns have started to scab over, and in place of red, raw, angry, skin we have a deeper red, rough healing layer. I can touch his skin now, without it stinging.

If you are a parent or grandparent, this post is meant to save your loved ones from the horror these parents went through.

Please share it with other parents, grandparents, babysitters, aunts and uncles ~ anyone you know who spends time with kids.

 

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Canadian  News
 

 

     

                     

              
 
 

Toys "R" Us pulls Aqua Dots on concern linked to Aussie recall

November 7, 2007

 

CBC News

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/071107/n110783A.html

 

Canadian Press: THE CANADIAN PRESS

  
 
                                                     

TORONTO - Federal Health Minister Tony Clement is promising more action in the coming weeks to improve product safety in the marketplace, on the same day a Canadian retailer removed a children's toy from its shelves over safety concerns.

Speaking at a business lunch in Toronto, Clement said federal officials are already taking steps to review outdated product safety legislation and that efforts are being made to crack down on counterfeit goods.

The minister's comments came just as Toys "R" Us in Canada removed the popular Chinese-made toy Aqua Dots from store shelves as a precautionary measure.

Officials in Australia, where a similar product is sold under the name Bindeez, pulled the item from store shelves because the toy's beads contain a chemical that, when swallowed, metabolizes inside the body into GHB, the so-called "date rape" drug.

Bindeez and Aqua Dots are made by the same company.

 

Three Australian children have been sent to hospital in the past 10 days after swallowing the beads.

 

 

GHB can cause unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

Toys "R" Us spokesman Mary Zanette says the toys have been taken off store shelves as a precautionary measure - not a recall.

The retailer says it was first alerted to the potential problem on Tuesday and immediately ordered Aqua Dots off the shelves until it could be assured of its customer safety.

The issue is also currently before the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

 

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Canadian News
 
 

      
     

 
                     

              
 
   
 
                                                     

Deadly parasite, bacteria taint child medicines

 

 TheStar.com - News -

 

 

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/290649

Two natural remedies from abroad that treat tummy upsets draw Health Canada warning

January 03, 2008

 

 

Neither product has been found in the Canadian marketplace.

 

But the products could have been bought by Canadians travelling abroad and brought into Canada or purchased over the Internet, Health Canada said.

 

OTTAWA–Health Canada is advising consumers not to use two foreign natural health products to treat digestive upset in infants and children because of potentially dangerous contamination.

 

Baby's Bliss Gripe Water (apple flavour), code 26952V, was found to contain cryptosporidium, a parasite that infects the gastrointestinal tract and can cause severe side-effects, especially in infants.

 

Cryptosporidium can lead to watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting and, in some cases, death.

The natural health product, given to infants to ease stomach discomfort and gas often associated with colic, hiccups and teething, is sold in a four-ounce (118-millilitre) plastic bottle inside a cardboard carton. The label reads: Baby's Bliss Pediatrician Recommended Gripe Water Apple Flavor. Baby's Bliss is distributed by MOM Enterprises, Inc. of California.

 

Health Canada is also advising consumers not to buy or consume Zhong Ti Xiao Er Jian Pi San, batch number JPS0704, which has been recalled due to bacterial contamination.

 

The powdered product is promoted for use in children to treat stomach upset and digestive problems.

Zhong Ti Xiao Er Jian Pi San is made by MOH Pharmaceutical Technologies in Malaysia and distributed in a 20-gram pack in Singapore by Chung Kuo Refined Chinese Medicine Dealers Ltd.

 

The contaminated product (batch number JPS0704) could cause bacterial infection, with symptoms depending on the type of microbe present, Health Canada said in an advisory yesterday.

 

Baby's Bliss Gripe Water and Zhong Ti Xiao Er Jian Pi San are not authorized for sale in Canada.

 

Neither product has been found in the Canadian marketplace.

But the products could have been bought by Canadians travelling abroad and brought into Canada or purchased over the Internet, Health Canada said.

 

Canadians who have these products are advised not to use them and to consult a health-care professional if they have concerns about their use.

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Health Canada warns against 'urine diseases' product Yeniujyn

2008 01 26

 

Health Canada is warning Canadians not to use an unauthorized product called Yeniujyn, which is marketed as a cure for "involuntary passage of urine."

 

The department says the product was found to contain high levels of lead and arsenic and may pose a serious health risk to anyone who uses it.

 

Manufactured by Kwangchow United Manufactory of Chinese Medicine, it is not authorized for sale in Cana