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July 25, 2008 12:03:53 PM CDT

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Toxic Cough Syrup Causes Deaths in Panama

Posted May 6, 07 8:00 AM CDT in World,  US,  Business,  Science & Health,  Glossies 

(Newser) – American drugmakers are on the lookout this week for another in the growing list of potentially deadly Chinese exports. This time, it's diethylene glycol, a sweet-but-toxic chemical that masquerades as glycerin in common medications like cough syrup and that has already killed almost 400 people—many of them children—in Panama. 

A New York Times investigation tracks the chemical's deadly path back to China's Yangtze Delta, where a tailor with fake credentials passed off the glycol as glycerin syrup. The glycol moved through three continents undetected before a Panamanian doctor traced a wave of deaths to its presence in cough syrup. Chinese drug monitoring is "a black hole,” says a local trader.

Source New York Times

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Empty bottles wait to be filled with prescription medication at a pharmacy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in April 2004.   (KRT Photos)
  (KRT Photos)
Cough syrup   (Getty Images)
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China  • health  • medicine  • FDA  • Panama  • cough syrup  • diethylene glycol  • glycerin


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