the blog of the guy who wrote

that book about china

Seventy have fallen ill in Guangzhou after eating pork tainted with clenbuterol, a drug commonly used to treat asthma in humans and illegally used by pork farmers to boost the muscle-to-fat ratio in pigs:

Charges are pending against a total of 15 people in the case that occurred in southern Guangdong province in February, with the other six still yet to be arrested, Xinhua news agency said.

Farmers in China have been known to feed pigs clenbuterol to reduce their fat, but it is banned as a food additive because it can be fatal for humans.

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Note: Pic above is one that I took in Guangzhou one summer…

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It seems that a number of Chinese families are looking to launch a class action lawsuit related to shampoo. From ConsumerAffairs.com: 

Eighty families have already organized in anticipation of the suit, and lawyers don’t plan to stop there. Cui Baoyu, one of the attorneys involved, said that the group was pursuing a class action “because of the huge number of victims involved.” More than 50 attorneys are already involved in the case, and Cui says that “the group continues expanding as more lawyers from all over the country ask to join every day.”

A few days ago, I reported on a recall in China of U.S.-made shampoo products, followed by a “never mind.” Now, it looks as though China is moving forward. Again, for those who might be interested, my book which was just published deals in part with China’s soap and shampoo market.

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As many as 100,000 U.S. homes may have been affected by defective, China-made drywall… 

Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida and Mary Landrieu of Lousiana, both Democrats, said in a press release Monday that they filed new legislation aimed at initiating a recall and imposing an immediate ban on “tainted building products from China.” 

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Took a call last week from an attorney who is involved in a class action lawsuit. Victoria’s Secret has had a problem  with their bras that are made in China. Women have reports rashes, hives, welts and scarring. Many of the news outlets that reported on the scandal, which broke out in late 2008, left out mention that the bras were manufactured in China.

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In what has to be one of the strangest trade-related attacks against a foreign company to date, China last week made the declaration that Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo was “tainted.” The move made little sense, and media outlets scrambled to figure out what the fuss was all about. Brian Orelli of The Motley Fool guessed that it must have been some form of retaliation:  

It looks like China’s answer to sending us contaminated toothpaste, tainted ingredients that Baxter (NYSE: BAX) eventually made into heparin, and toys with lead paint on them sold by RC2 (Nasdaq: RCRC) and Mattel (NYSE: MAT), is to respond with a childish, “I’m rubber, you’re glue; everything bounces off of me and sticks to you.”

Like so many others, I was inclined to believe this interpretation of events. In an article that I wrote in the summer of 2007, I described the same sort of behavior:

Recent accusations of unreliability in Chinese products are now being met with tit-for-tat claims that U.S. products are faulty. This is an unfortunate strategy for China, and it means that we will continue to see quality problems. 

Jeff Steir also hinted that it had to do with vengeance. In an article titled, “The Empire Strikes Back,” he wrote:  

Scaremongering U.S. regulators have been indiscriminately attacking products from China for years, and China recently struck back.

The question remains, though — why shampoo? Typically when China lashes out against some product, there is a sector tie-in. When foreign economies reject tainted milk products from China, for example, authorities in China criticize milk products from foreign makers.

My new book, “Poorly Made in China,” was on its way to warehouses during all of this business about baby shampoo (Amazon made the book available just yesterday), and it might have been interesting to some to know that in it there is some talk about shampoo in it. A good portion of the book, actually — about one-fourth? — highlights efforts to make low-quality soap and shampoo products in China. 

I have no reason to believe that “Poorly Made in China” was directly tied to the baby shampoo episode, but the timing was certainly curious. The book is not focused on any one product sector. All the same, those who might read it will want to bookmark recent news stories involving Johnson & Johnson.

More later…

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Google today celebrates Eric Carle’s “Very Hungry Caterpillar,” a popular children’s book. Seeing the logo on the company’s homepage reminded me of a post that I’ve meant to get up here.

Tained toys from China recently brought about a new law that has libraries now searching for books that may contain traces of lead paint. Librarians were upset by the new law, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has had no choice but to issue a one-year reprieve for testing on library books.

Here’s one article from the Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St.Paul: “Whoa! Lock up those kids’ books chock full o’ lead,” and an excerpt:

Some thrift stores around the country are tossing out bushels of old children’s books, just to be safe. No one wants a ruinous fine because they sold a copy of “Fido Visits the Gas Refinery” printed in 1952.

Criticism of the new law suggests that the federal government has gone too far in this case, and I’m inclined to agree.

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As if we don’t have enough to worry about in the current economy, American homeowners are now worrying about bad drywall from China:

The bad drywall causes  a foul smell…

…and then there were the headaches and the nosebleeds. The only time the symptoms subsided was when they were away from the house. Their son, who had always been the picture of health, was sickened for a week by an upper respiratory attack.

USA Today reported on the case, as have many other national newspapers. LA Times’ real estate blog mentioned the dywall issue in connection with my upcoming book:

LA Land checked in with Paul Midler, author of “Poorly Made in China,” who has seen “quality fade” in many Chinese products — that’s the practice of widening profit margins by reducing the quality of materials used — but nothing specific to drywall yet.

I have a feeling that we’ll be talking about drywall again…

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“Poorly Made in China” will be shipping to warehouses on March 23rd, or so I’ve been told. That’s less than a week away!

Anyone looking forward to getting a copy won’t have to wait too much longer than that. Amazon.com has the book listed as being available on April 6th, and I’ve been told that bookstores will have copies available before that date.

You would think that an author gets an advance copy of the final product, but it doesn’t work like that here. Like everyone else, I am forced to wait for the printer to do its thing, for the books to be boxed up and delivered.

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Typically it’s the cheap stuff that gets hit with a recall, but product quality issues out of China are now affecting those Bobos in Paradise.

Williams-Sonoma has recalled a Belgian waffle maker at the beginning of March. And more recently, Nordstrom made the decision to recall children shoes from its stores for lead content. 

I thought we were all done with that lead paint business…

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Chinese government officials, conducting their own investigation have concluded that thousands of athletes are faking their age in order to gain an advantage. 

Bone tests of nearly 13,000 athletes found that over 2,000 were likely older than their registered age, according to the Sports Bureau of Guangdong Province, which carried out the probe… Some of the athletes were up to seven years older than their registered ages… 

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