Nobody's Dead, So What's the Big Deal?

That's China's attitude toward the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warning regarding Chinese-manufactured toothpaste:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has branded a U.S. warning against using its toothpaste as irresponsible, saying low levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) were not harmful.

"So far we have not received any report of death resulting from using the toothpaste. The U.S. handling (of this case) is neither scientific nor responsible," China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement posted on its Web site over the weekend.

"All the toothpaste exported to the United States had been registered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for marketing in the States."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the warning on Friday after toothpaste containing DEG was detected in a shipment seized at the border.

The seizure was the most recent in a series of scares over the safety of locally made products which have put China's food and drug exports under scrutiny around the world.

Similarly contaminated toothpaste has been seized across Latin America, and in Panama, the government says at least 100 people died after taking cough syrup that contained DEG, an industrial solvent used in paint and antifreeze.

I always try to buy food items low in industrial solvents and antifreeze. It's just a quirk of mine.