At Least 84 Children Die In Nigeria From Toxic Teething Syrup - Contained Diethylene Glycol - NYT

[hatrack]

DAKAR, Senegal — A toxic chemical mixed into a teething medicine for babies has killed at least 84 children in Nigeria, health officials there said Friday, more than tripling the toll in a wave of infant deaths that began in late November.

The children died after taking a medicine called My Pikin Baby Teething Mixture, a syrup for teething pain, according to Nigeria’s Health Ministry. Health officials said that a batch of the medicine that went on sale in November contained diethylene glycol, an industrial solvent and an ingredient in antifreeze and brake fluid.

The chemical looks, smells and tastes like glycerin, a sweet syrup commonly used in a wide range of medicines, foods and toothpaste, and counterfeiters enhance their profit by substituting diethylene glycol, which is relatively cheap, for the more expensive but harmless glycerin.

The chemical causes kidney and liver damage, as well as attacking the central nervous system, causing paralysis that hampers breathing. Children in Nigeria began to get sick in November with unexplained fevers and vomiting. Some stopped urinating and many had diarrhea. Across the country children with similar symptoms turned up at hospitals amid rising anger and panic. The high concentration of the syrupy liquid in the teething medicine has made it even more deadly — three-quarters of the children made sick by the medicine have died, the Health Ministry said.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/africa/07nigeria.html?_r=1&ref=world

[ixion]

1. what the hell is wrong with people?

I mean, would anyone but a psychopath think it was okay to put antifreeze in cough syrup?

:wtf:

[Barack_America]

2. I'd bet money this is going to trace back to China again. nt

[Ikonoklast]

3. Beat me to it.

The Chinese have absolutely no scruples when it comes to re-labeling poison for human consumption.

They are the capitalists an absolute free market in search of the lowest price predicts.

Ayn Rand would be proud. It's YOUR fault for getting poisoned.

[Howzit]

7. Profits are one thing, but killing your customer base is just stupid

I thought capitalists took a loner term view of things than criminals and parasites?

[Ikonoklast]

8. Criminals, parasites, capitalists.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to delineate the vanishingly smaller differences between them anymore.

We have capitalists in this country, doing business legally, that would make the Dons in the Mafia blush.

Look to the purveyors of illicit narcotics. The dead will always be replaced by those willing to poison themselves.

Look to the manufacturers and retailer of the sanctioned 'legal' poisons such as tobacco and alcohol. They kill millions of their users every year.

Good capitalists all. Just differing by degree.

[seafan]

4. More tragedy from unbridled greed...

84 Children Are Killed by Medicine in Nigeria

By LYDIA POLGREEN
February 6, 2009

DAKAR, Senegal — A toxic chemical mixed into a teething medicine for babies has killed at least 84 children in Nigeria, health officials there said Friday, more than tripling the toll in a wave of infant deaths that began in late November.

....

Investigators at Nigeria’s National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control have traced the diethylene glycol to an unlicensed chemical dealer in Lagos, who sold the syrup to the maker of the teething medicine, Barewa Pharmaceuticals. The company has been shut down, and investigators have pulled off pharmacy shelves hundreds of bottles of the tainted medicine, but it remains unclear how much of the medicine was manufactured.

Diethylene glycol has figured in mass poisoning cases across the globe. In Panama, 365 people were killed after taking medicine inadvertently tainted with the chemical in a government factory in 2006. The sweet but deadly syrup was labeled glycerin, but it was in fact diethylene glycol from a factory in China. Dozens of children in Haiti died a decade ago after taking contaminated medicine for fevers. In 1990, 109 children died in Nigeria after taking medicine tainted with a similar compound.

Nigeria’s often lax enforcement of counterfeiting laws and its corruption-riddled bureaucracy left the country’s pharmacies full of tainted or fake drugs for decades. But since democratic rule returned in 1999, the government has been cracking down on makers of counterfeit or dangerous medicine.

Awaiting news on the original source of this deadly taint..

[CountAllVotes]

5. this same crap was found in Petromalt

Petromalt = a common hairball treatment given to kittens & cats right here in the good old USA!!! :grr:

I wonder where else this crap is to be found in the world?

:dem: :kick:

[peacetalksforall]

6. Any chemist here - polyethelene = plastic - the same used for baggies?

The kind that disintegrates and is uncomfortable to touch when it has been around for awile?