is anyone paying attention?
Rat poison in China hospital food blamed for death
Last Updated: 2007-04-10 13:00:45 -0400 (Reuters Health)BEIJING (Reuters) - One person died and more than 200 fell ill after eating breakfast porridge suspected of containing rat poison at a hospital in China, state media said on Tuesday.
Patients and staff at a traditional Chinese hospital in the northeastern city of Harbin suffered nausea and diarrhoea shortly after eating breakfast at its restaurant on Monday, Xinhua news agency said.
"All the victims ate porridge, and investigators suspected the water had been contaminated by rat poison," Xinhua said.
Du Qingrong, a 77-year-old woman admitted on Friday for cardiovascular disease, died on Monday afternoon. All other victims were out of danger by Monday afternoon, Xinhua said, citing hospital sources.
The news agency said the hospital, one of Heilongjiang province's largest and best-equipped medical institutions, had been shut down after the incident and food samples taken for testing.
OK, let's review:
1) Melamine can be, and apparently has been, added to grain products to boost their protein count. It is toxic.
2) Aminopterin is an analog of folic acid, and indistinguishable from folic acid in simple lab tests. Aminopterin is a chemotherapy drug sometimes apparently used as rat poison. Folic acid is commonly used to supplement pet (and human) food. Was there aminopterin in the porridge?
3) China's regulatory apparatus is a very, very bad joke. There have been numerous instances of mass poisonings motivated by simple greed on the part of food producers.
It seems reasonable to suspect that both aminopterin and melamine were in the contaminated pet food, the first as a folic acid substitute, the second to boost protein content. And, since the US gets a large chunk of its wheat gluten from China, the chances that this crap is not in the human food supply are not good.
You might wanna re-think that Pop-Tart.