China makes 90% of the world's vitamin C, 50% of its aspirin, 35% of acetominophen...

[Hannah Bell]

as well as the bulk of vitamins A, B12, and E.


"Issues of food and drug safety ripple across China today. The former chief of the state Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was given the death sentence Tuesday for taking $832,000 in bribes to let unsafe drugs on the market. One Zheng aide was sentenced to a 15-year jail term last autumn, and a second was accused in May in the bribery scandal."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003732744_vitamins03.html


Have you noticed any big savings in your vitamin/drug bills the last 5-10 years?

[Joe the Liberal]

1. Wow a death sentence.......

for bribes? that seems kinda harsh but seeing that he was putting potentially millions of peoples health at risk than I guess its fine. They need to do that to the corrupt CEO's here in the US but they don't, instead they reward them with billions.

[old mark]

2. A lot of our famously expensive prescription medicines

and their component chemicals are imported by US drug companies from China. Prices didn't go down, either.

Asimov, the PRC used to execute drug dealers, too. Still might, for all I know.

mark

[Hannah Bell]

3. "are imported by US drug companies from China"

i'd heard that, but hadn't been able to find in-depth documentation (e.g. company/drug names, components, etc.). do you have a source?

[old mark]

10. It was on MSN online some time ago, but I don't have any specifics.

Try the G? I am sure there is good information online - I have seen this several times over the spring and summer.

mark

ADDED: Try Google - there are pages of information on contaminated Heparin and other imported drugs, including a good article from San Diego on the fact that the ability of US citizens to legally import prescriptions was stopped by congress due in part to Chinses made drugs that were sickening people here.
US consumber pay the highest prices for prescribed drugs in the world, evidently not getting much for the money. Big surprise, huh?
mark

[HughBeaumont]

4. "China Makes". This is why your economy sucks, folks.

China can make some stuff. China doesn't need to make EVERY damned thing under the sun.

Has NO one watched Ha Ha Ha America?

A strong economy employs people of ALL levels, not just the heavily degreed and privileged; and it turns out, even THOSE people ain't safe anymore in our benevolent, give-every-dime-to-the-wealthy-and-HOPE-they'll-reward-me model.

Meanwhile, we give tons MORE cash to universities out of our own pockets (since no one can give us loans and companies are ending tuition reimbursement) and keep believing that if we get PhD's, we'll finally be safe. News flash: tons of cheaper PhDs exist offshore. There was an article called 36 Sure Fire Signs Your Empire is Crumbling, and one of the signs was "You know your empire’s crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you’re making it harder and more expensive."

Continuing this crap will only cause the pyramid's acme to HOARD, not HIRE. Proof positive is the piss-poor job creation record during the "tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations" era. It's now plunged from the 49-thousand-jobs-per-month figure I posted weeks ago and is only going to get worse as the idiot Bewshconomy continues to bleed more jobs.

You know, because THATs certainly going to help things.

Gawd FORBID the rich and the companies they ruin don't see to make US pay for their fuck-ups and simply RIDE bad times out like the rest of us have to do. Gawd FORBID the people who couldn't outspend their fortunes if they tried actually (perish the THOUGHT! I NEED my mansions!) make sacrifices. Gawd FORBID layoffs aren't like what blue-collar brothers had . . . where you were idled with at least SOME of your pay and actually got called BACK when times got better (this is something my dad couldn't conceive when I got laid off from a job . . . that it was permanent, I wasn't going back and I had no safety net in the meantime). To add insult to beatdown, the wealthy now plunder phantom dollars we don't have so they can continue to retain their lottery-esque fortunes and buy luxury items on our dime. How and WHY are we not storming the gated communities?

Please don't be bamboozled by the "trade is great, long live free trade" mavens (some, sadly, exist on this board). Really, look back for three decades. Aside from a few strong years, how's that working out for us? Remember the past 8 years? 1987-1993? Reagan's first term?

This DOES. NOT. WORK. The laissez-fail Reaganomics model has to die.

Keynes all the way.

You want this economy to get better?

Employ us. GAINfully. Stop the goddamned mass firings. Firings are not helping. Firings in even one company will cause the rest of us not to spend. We're not buying anything because we're tapped out and scared. Scared people are not good for your business. You buying luxury items, like other companies, and firing all of your workers does not help the economy. I don't know what sort of clue-by-four needs to be administered to your heads, but you need to have one soon.

Also, don't toss this "lower my taxes" bullshit at us. I don't pretend that empty wallet is going to get filled with lower taxes. It will get filled by a raise. It will be spent with a raise. Multiply this by 200 million, and you got yourself an economy again.

You know, like how it USED to work from the 30s through the early 70s . . . before Stagflation, and "trickle up", and the multiple recessions and market collapses that followed.

But hey, just ignore me. I'm only talking common sense here. Continue to go about your stupid-ass way of doing things and watch as the country turns into one big Lorain, Ohio. All because you all just can't kick your unfeeling addictions to greed and superiority. All because you just can't have any smidgen of potential exist where someone might reach the top of your panoptic mountain.

[Eurobabe]

5. Hey, I was born in Lorain

And man did that place go DOWNHILL. It's so sad.

Fuck China BTW. My wish for the next decade is that everyone stops buying their inferior shit. :mad:

edit: It's no small wonder that I had a kidney stone in 2001, I used to take handfuls of vitamins everyday, I stopped all the vitamins in 2003 after another health incident.

[HughBeaumont]

12. As went steel, so went Lorain.

My dad was a US Steel . . . then USX . . . then Republic Steel . . . guy. He got out while the getting was good, and even the government had to take over his pension (remember those?). Lorain had some auto plants in it too. GONE. And other industries. GONE.

"But th' cawst savin's is just too great t'ignore!" Stupid.

You just gotta wonder how America would have turned out had we installed a common-sense President in office 30 years ago. Doesn't really matter what party, just someone with common sense. One who would have passed public transportation and infrastructure upgrades and keep our structural, industrial and manufacturing economy HERE. One who realized that when we all do well, we ALL do well.

Unfortunately, Eisenhower and Kennedy politicians no longer exist, and neither do their economic principles.

Now, the result is an economy based on non-renewable energy, massive leveraging and industries that heavily benefit those at the top of the pyramids moreso than society or their workforce (war, drugs, finance and insurance, par example).

[kwassa]

14. I worked at National Tube Works, US Steel, in 1973, Lorain, Ohio

Summer job while I was going to college. It was going strong back then, and had just opened up a new high-tech (for then) blast furnace operation. About 7000 employees, as I recall.

I'd work the night shift and come home and watch the Watergate hearings during the day.

I always wondered what happened in Lorain, I left the area in '76.

and my dad is retired from GM.

[area51]

6. Great rant.

:thumbsup:

All these traitorous U.S. businesses sitting around wringing their hands b/c no one will buy their products? What the fsck did they think would happen when they continued to offshore American jobs?

[rucky]

7. Who would bribe him to do that?

[Coexist]

8. A death sentence. man.

[Romulox]

9. This is why you can't simultaneously be for "free trade" and public health.

Or "free trade" and environmentalism (Al Gore :eyes: ).

Or "free trade" and labor protections.

Free trade means anything goes, and we must all sink to the lowest level that anyone is willing to go.

[mod mom]

11. Phew...just checked the kids L'il Critter gummy Calcium & Vitamins and they're USA made!

I used to always forget mine so I started taking they very yummy gummys when I dish them out to the kids. Will check the rest of the medicine cabinet.

[varelse]

13. USA made doesn't mean that all of the ingredients are also made in the USA

I work at a supplement distributor/manufacturer - all of our supplements are "USA made" in our facility but many of the ingredients are sourced outside the USA, in, for example, China. :(

[OhioChick]

15. You're absolutely right.

Ingredients "can" come from China/India, but the label can still state "USA Made."

[Quantess]

16. That's ....disheartening.

I just had an Emergen-C fizzing vitamin powder.
Of course it doesn't say Made In China, but that doesn't guarantee anything.
:scared:

[codjh9]

17. Yeah, and what percentage of air pollution? Did you see the articles yesterday on ominous brown

clouds of air pollution from China, India, and ... I forget where else? This shit is even affecting the west coast; even snowmelt in Colorado, I kid you not (I've read additional articles on that too). Few problems are truly 'local' any more.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. You know what else?

Remember when we were told that we couldn't import drugs from Canada because of "safety issues"?

While that controversy was going on, I happened to read the fine print on my box of loratidine (generic Claritin), and guess where it's made: India. :wtf:

[Hannah Bell]

19. Oh the irony.