Food & Drug Safety

Investigators say the cucumber hummus at the Pars Cove Persian Cuisine booth at Taste of Chicago was the culprit in a salmonella outbreak that has now hit 636 people who patronized the festival. Fifty cases are confirmed; 25 have been hospitalized. More »

In an apparent retaliatory move, China has addressed concerns about food safety—by halting imports from several American meat processors. The country's inspection agency posted a notice on its website late yesterday saying that salmonella-contaminated chicken produced by Tyson and products from several other large US firms had flunked inspection, the AP reports. More »

Contaminated Chinese seafood is the latest high-profile export turning American consumers off their feed, but they might want to save some caution for Dominican produce and Danish candy, FDA stats suggest. Inspectors stopped more food shipments from India and Mexico than from China in the past year, the Times reports, and the flood of imports is overtaxing the agency's enforcement system. More »

Industrial chemicals contaminate many species of fish that populate the Great Lakes, making them too hazardous for safe human consumption, says a Canadian conservation group. "The lakes continue to be polluted to such an extent that human health is threatened," says a report released yesterday that lists industrial pollutants such as dioxins, PCBs, and methyl mercury among the contaminants. More »

A snack popular with health-conscious junk-food fans because it contains kale and spinach may also contain salmonella, according to the FDA and CDC, and the manufacturer of Veggie Booty has issued a nationwide recall. Fifty-one people, many of whom had eaten the green-colored rice and corn curlicues, reported symptoms consistent with salmonella poisoning. More »

Add farmed seafood to the list of unsafe goods imported from China. The FDA will detain three varieties of fish as well as shrimp and eel, the agency said today, after tests revealed the presence of antibiotics and antifungals that aren't approved in the US for use in aquaculture. The level of contamination and risk to consumers are low. More »

The Chinese toothpaste scare is far from over and is more than just a scare. Tainted tubes have turned up, as expected, in discount stores—but officials have also found them in institutions such as prisons and hospitals, the Times reports. Nearly 1 million tubes containing varying amounts of a chemical found in antifreeze have been distributed, mostly in Georgia. More »

The Chinese government has shut down 180 food manufacturing plants for racking up a whopping 23,000 violations in the last six months, most of them for using chemicals and industrial materials as food fillers to cut costs. Almost all were small and unlicensed, making it unlikely their products, worth some $26 million, reached international markets. More »

The Chinese government has closed 180 factories that were using dangerous and illegal ingredients, such as formaldehyde, in food products. The relatively large number of plants casts serious doubt on Beijing's insistence that the recent rash of tainted products originated with a small number of sources, the AP reports: A government official said the shutdowns were "not isolated cases." More »

Accomplia, a weight-loss drug marketed in 18 other countries, failed to win approval from an FDA advisory board yesterday. The 14-member panel of outside experts ruled unanimously that manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis had not dispelled concerns about the safety of the drug, whose potential side effects include suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. More »

In yet another product-safety scandal, fake blood protein has been found in IV drips in 60 hospitals and pharmacies in northeastern China, the BBC reports. Albumin, or plasma protein, is administered to patients suffering from burns or undergoing open-heart surgery; the counterfeit contained no protein at all.  More »

The weight loss drug Acomplia is stuck in FDA limbo, but that isn't stopping Americans from ordering it off the Internet or buying it in Europe, where it's legal. If the government rules that its lowering of weight and cholesterol balances out the possible side effects, including suicide and depression, Acomplia could be worth billions to manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis. More »

Nearly 8 years after the government asked vaccine makers to reduce the use of a preservative that contains mercury, hearings began today to probe the connection between autism and childhood vaccines. If the U.S. Court of Federal Claims finds a link, the plaintiffs could qualify for compensation through a government trust fund—but many parents are equally interested in vindication. More »

Nigeria is suing pharma giant Pfizer for $7 billion, claiming the company carried out improper trials on children. 200 children in the state of Kano died, and others developed deformities, after Pfizer tested Trovan, an experimental antibiotic, during a 1996 meningitis outbreak. Nigeria claims the tests were unauthorized, but Pfizer insists the company had consent. More »

A group of religious conservatives has marshalled unreleased FDA data as a weapon in the battle against  Gardasil, the new cervical cancer vaccine. The data indicates health problems in women taking the vaccine, but  drugmaker Merck and the FDA both insist that the negative effects are probably unrelated to the vaccine. Critics oppose legislation to require administering the vaccine in schools. More »

The Dominican Republic is the latest country investigating the possibility that a poisonous chemical from China wound up in a consumer product. This time it's toothpaste that contains the industrial solvent diethylene glycol, which has already turned up in Panama and Australia, the Times reports. The Chinese government has tracked the toothpaste to factories in the Danyang region. More »

The careless prescription of anti-psychotic drugs, often by psychiatrists who draw pay checks from the companies who make them, has drawn attention in the New York Times recently. Now Ann Bauer, writing in Salon , draws an intimate portrait of the effects of such carelessness on one autistic teenager, who turned from shy chess nerd to psychotic bruiser. More »

In the wake of the pet-food poisoning scandal, some of the biggest U.S. food manufacturers—Tyson and Mission Foods—have banned Chinese ingredients. But since China is the world's biggest supplier of the flavorings, vitamins and preservatives that are used in virtually all processed foods, the bans may be impossible to uphold, the LA Times observes. More »

Hundreds of common chemicals—from a substance used in French fries to one found in tap water—may cause breast cancer, a new report linking the disease to everyday products suggests. Researchers say they've found a link between cancer in animals and more than 200 common chemicals, many of which the federal government doesn't regulate. More »

The Times tackles the growing use of antipsychotic drugs in children, contentious because the drugs are risky and have no approved use for minors. But the trend is also questionable because it coincides with increasing payments to psychiatrists by the companies that market the drugs. In Minnesota, these payments rose sixfold from 2000 to 2005. More »