« Why would New Yorkers want to eat outside? | Main | Monitors Don't Stop Patients From Waking during surgey »

October 1, 2007

Eduardo Arias and the diethylene glycol toothpaste

The Everyman Who Exposed Tainted Toothpaste - New York Times

Eduardo Arias hardly fits the profile of someone capable of humbling one of the world’s most formidable economic powers.

A 51-year-old Kuna Indian, Mr. Arias grew up on a reservation paddling dugout canoes near his home on one of the San Blas islands off Panama’s Caribbean coast. He now lives in a small apartment above a food stand in Panama, the nation’s capital, also known as Panama City.

But one Saturday morning in May, Eduardo Arias did something that would reverberate across six continents. He read the label on a 59-cent tube of toothpaste. On it were two words that had been overlooked by government inspectors and health authorities in dozens of countries: diethylene glycol, the same sweet-tasting, poisonous ingredient in antifreeze that had been mixed into cold syrup here, killing or disabling at least 138 Panamanians last year.

wow

Posted by TY at October 1, 2007 10:32 AM

Want to add this to your webpage? Easy! Just copy and paste the following text into your page:
<a href="http://www.tomorrowyesterday.com/2007/10/eduardo_arias_a.html">TomorrowYesterday: Eduardo Arias and the diethylene glycol toothpaste</a>

Permalink: http://www.tomorrowyesterday.com/2007/10/eduardo_arias_a.html

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.tomorrowyesterday.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-no-spam-tb.cgi/4682

Comments

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:
-- Your email will be kept secret. I hate spam too.

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

-- Avoid Double Posting! If you don't see your comment, hit reload FIRST.