Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Earlier this month, the Associated Press exposed yet another disturbing Chinese trade secret when it reported that some manufacturers in China are making children’s jewelry with the highly toxic metal cadmium. Children’s jewelry now joins the growing list of dangerous and sometimes deadly products pouring into the United States from China – a list that includes toys covered with lead paint, pet food and baby formula tainted with melamine, sulfuric drywall that has ruined thousands of homes, and other poorly made or defective merchandise.

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Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is pulling items of children’s jewelry known or suspected to be manufactured with high levels of toxic cadmium from store shelves. The move follows an Associated Press investigation published earlier this week which found some China-based manufacturers were creating children’s jewelry with varying amounts of cadmium — a heavy medal considered by the federal government to be one of the most toxic substances on earth.

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On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s priority list of the 275 most toxic substances in the environment, the heavy metal cadmium is ranked seventh. Unfortunately, in an investigative report, the Associated Press found that cadmium is being used in large quantities to make children’s jewelry and other products that are sold in the United States. The country of origin for almost all of these products is China.

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Texas Department of State Health Services are warning consumers, especially those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, to avoid a traditional remedy for morning sickness known as Nzu because it contains high levels of lead and arsenic, which can lead to adverse effects of the unborn child’s brain and nervous system and increase one’s risk of cancers of the urinary bladder, lungs and skin.

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Four firms have been ordered to pay a total of $610,000 in civil penalties for knowingly failing to immediately report to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), as required by federal law, that children’s hooded sweatshirts or jackets they sold had drawstrings at the neck. The drawstrings on children’s upper outerwear, including sweatshirts or jackets, pose a strangulation hazard to children that can result in serious injury or death. The CPSC and the firms have announced recalls on the products.

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This week the House of Representatives passed legislation representing what would be the largest overhaul of the food safety system in American history. The measure passed the House 283 to 142 with nearly all Democrats and about half of Republicans voting in favor. The Senate is expected to review the bill in the fall after its recess.

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A California produce grower has recalled romaine lettuce that was distributed throughout 29 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico because of salmonella contamination. Tanimura & Antle, Inc. of Salinas, Calif., issued the recall after the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture detected salmonella on the lettuce in a randomized test.

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Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor state health agencies require food manufacturers to test the safety of their products before they enter the market. Inspectors periodically visit the factories where food is processed to make sure their operations are up to code, but as we have seen in the recent past, even those rules can be insufficient and lax.

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Last month, inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration visited the Plainview, Texas, peanut processing plant owned and operated by the Peanut Corporation of America. The inspection was ordered after investigators linked a salmonella outbreak that sickened nearly 700 people in nearly every state to the Peanut Corp’s plant in Blakely, Georgia. Shortly after the outbreak, news broke that the company’s sister plant in Texas plant actually operated unlicensed and uninspected for years. Inspectors rushed in.

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Peanut Corporation of America has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Virginia following the recall of peanut products produced in the company’s Blakely, Georgia, and Plainview, Texas, facilities.

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