This is a follow-up diary to yesterday's China Exports Poisoned Medicine While FDA Cuts Back Labs" by SusanHu and my own this is why we need Regulation and Government. For those Sunday morning folks who missed Saturday afternoon.
The point is that whether it is Melamine last month, or now diethylene glycol, recent stories about capitalism run riot in China, where regulations either do not exist or are ignored, remind us why government and regulation are good (hey Grover Norquist, you listening).
It is a reminder of why there is a need to keep tax payer funding of the FDA (not drug company supported, fox guarding hen house) so that the agency can actually function.
And for OSHA, etc. etc.
Of course the U.S. should have learned this back in 1937 when our own mass outbreak of poisoning and death due to diethylene glycol occurred, and led to an empowered FDA.
As noted above, the NY Times is reporting a world wide outbreak of diethylene glycol (DG) poisoning originating from China. DG is ab industrial solvent. Numerous times in history it has been substituted for Propylene Glycol which is a useful and nontoxic sweet tasting syrup often used to suspend or disolve medicine in to make it easier for children to take. Despite the similar sounding name they are very different. The first causes renal failure and brain damage. The latter is safe and in wide legitimate use.
I was a small part of the identification of a similar outbreak in Nigeria in 1991, when DG was diverted from the Oil industry to make paracetamol (like tylenol) syrup (instead of the more expensive propylene glycol) for use in children mostly with malaria. One of my two small contributions was to predict, before chemical analysis, that the poison would be DG. This was based on my rembering from a childhood book (science & history nerd; read the Paul deKruif books). Both the story and symptoms fit.
Per the links above, in 1937, the Massengale/Massengill (I've seen both spelling?) company was a major drug company, more of the patent-over-the-counter-kind. They began marketing a combination of sulfa (a then new antibiotic; one of the first) combined with diethylene glycol. The official count is that 107 people died. And Massengale was reduced to being the douche company (as it were) they are today.
The FDA, which had been founded following the publicized revelations of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, was very weak until then. It was this outbreak in 1937 that led to the FDA getting real regulatory power over drugs in 1938. Needless to say this has been weakened in recent years
However, in recent years, especially since Reagan, the worst of corporate American, aided by the Republican party and their other well paid allies in the media, have wildly promoted deregulation, smaller government, defunding and destaffing agencies, etc.
Well, just increasing inequality and wealth disparity can help make the U.S. like bannana republics elsewhere, with a few wealthy in gated communities and swarms of poor people, and a dwindling insecure middle class -- so can deregulation and letting capitalism go unfettered lead to what we can call a new China Syndrome.
We need to fully fund and empower regulatory agencies that protect us from capitalism run riot.
We need FAIR trade that includes the rights of workers, the environment and consumers, not just the so-called FREE trade rights of free flow of money, capital and corporate interests.
The alternative is, shall we say, Norquists wet dream.
Except that people die.
It is why Democrats, Progressive, Liberals are not economic Libertarians. We do not support an uncontrolled free-for-all race-to-the-bottom. Whether the counter-example is unfettered corporations on China; lack of gun control in Somalia/Afghanistan/Iraq; or super-rich having to live in gated communities surrounded by security guards to protect them from their own poor countrymen (most of second world), or just our own Mississippi... the way of low taxes, no regulation and small government is NOT the way of true Freedom or what we want for the U.S.
Updates:
- There was going to be a political battle for strengthening the FDA as part of every four years or so re-authorization... even before the flurry of new legislation being proposed in reaction to the Melamine and what will no doubt follow the new revelations discussed here. Contact your senators and congresspeople to support a stronger and funded FDA.
- Clarify - both diethylene glycol (the chemical used in the new Chinese outbreak, Nigeria in 1991, and Massengill in 1937) and ethylene glycol are toxic. propylene glycol is the non-toxic syrupy sweetner that is okay to use.
- I have seen both spellings for Massengill and Massengale in historical literature. But Massengill is correct. The other is a typo... not originating with me (for once; lol).
- My take on "supplements": L-tryptophan Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome (EMS) was related to a contaminant in artificially manufactured L-tryptophan, which is a naturally occurring amino acid found in most protein foods, but which became promoted as a supplement to bodybuilders and others (e.g., as a sleep aid). It is a good example of inadequate regulation resulting in a compound that probably does not have any useful effect but causes harm by a contaminant. The Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate (GHB) outbreaks are a different but related story. Here the "supplement" really is a drug. It works! It puts you into deep sleep, transient near coma, but without much respirtory supression (you keep breathing). So it is useful as a date rape drug, but was promoted for many other things (sleep, bodybulding). The point is with supplements is that either they are fradulent and don't work and are at best a waste of money... but still need oversite to avoid risk of contaminants (who knows what is in them really). Or often, they do have real physiological and pharmacological effect... may have benefits, but also have side effects. You don't get something for nothing. In which case should have oversite regarding risk/benefit, dosing, appropriate use... as well as for avoiding contaminants, making sure dose of active ingrediant is consistent, etc.
- I am NOT anti-Chinese (I am not Lou Dobbs)... I against any authoritarian or totalitarian GOVERNMENT that is completely in the cahoots of its most selfish CORPORATE class. That may be the current Chinese leadership or the current U.S. Republican party. There are folks in China working, as best they can without being imprisoned or getting a bullet in the head, for pro-consumer safety, pro-environment, etc. But cannot have Free & Fair trade with a country where the people are not free and the government is not fair.