The Chinese gluten/wheat is industrial espionage/sabotage

[NewJeffCT]

Since I have in-laws in China, I tend to follow stories about China a little more closely than most on DU.

In the 5 1/2 years I have had in-laws in China, I have seen several stories about incidents in restaurants where a competitor poisoned the clientele of a rival restaurant. Now, even if it is proven that the poisoner did it intentionally, I would imagine it would be very difficult for the victimized restaurant to survive, as they would likely be shut down for the course of the police investigation. And, would people really be lining up to go there after 40+ people just died there a week or two earlier?

From this, it does not take a Great Leap in logic to see something similar happening in another food-related industry: I think it is a case of industrial espionage/sabotage straight out of the laissez-faire days of American capitalism of the late 1800s.

If you are a rival factory that produces the same pet food that is being sold to a big foreign company, one way to quickly knock off a competitor would be to sneak a spy into their ranks and have them poison the food. Even if it was proven to be industrial espionage, do you think the big pet food company is going to use that factory again?

And, if you wanted to hurt Menu Foods, the poisoner has obviously succeeded. I am sure if they are a public company, their stock has taken a beating these past few weeks. If the company can avoid bankruptcy over this incident, they are going to have to retool their whole supply chain and spend years regaining public trust.

If it was an intentional poisoning, the person (or persons) behind the incident were obviously counting on negligent or corrupt enforcement in China coupled with lax and declining inspections of imported foods here in the US.



Here are a few stories I dug up in 5-10 minutes on google:

This story is about a restaurant in Nanjing, China – I remember it because that is where most of my in-laws live.

Nanjing was the capitol of short-lived republic they had in China from the early 1900s to the Japanese invasion in the 1930s. It's most famous for the "Rape of Nanking" during the Japanese invasion.
>>>>

NANJING, China -- Rat poison is the suspected cause of an outbreak of food poisoning in China, in which dozens of people are believed to have died.
"Initial investigations indicate there was rat poison in the food that was served to the victims," the China Daily quoted Zhou Qiang, a publicity official with the Jiangsu provincial government, as saying.

He said the poison could have been deliberately put into the food by someone, but public security authorities were still looking into the case that left hundreds of patrons of a small Nanjing store ill.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/15/china.poisoning/index.html


A bit more here:
>>>>

I have found several references to the active compound that produced
the poisoning near Nanjing (China). It seems the poisoning was
intentional -- done by a restaurant owner who was jealous of the
success of his cousin's business.

The product that caused the poisonings has been identified as a
popular tetramine rat poison marketed as "Du Shu Qiang," an official
at the Nanjing Military Region General Hospital said. Production of Du
Shu Qiang is banned in China, but the poison is widely used in rural
areas because of its low cost and high effectiveness, the Shanghai
Daily said on Tue 17 Sep 2002. As little as 5 milligrams of the
poison is enough to kill someone, a local doctor told the newspaper.
The active ingredient is "Tetramine; Tetramethylene Disulfotetramine."
A number of Chinese sites (i.e., in Chinese language) refer to the
product, but I cannot find any really good reference on the
English-language sites. It does not appear to be a common ingredient
in rat poison in the West.

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/toxicol/2002-September/003333.html


A story here refers to several poisoning incidents:
>>>>>

Abstract The last several years have seen a large number of mass poisonings in mainland China, particularly those caused by illicit rodenticides. One rat poison, tetramine (tetramethylene disulfotetramine) is responsible for a great percentage of death and injury in the People s Republic of China (PRC). Tetramine is an acutely toxic substance with human oral toxicity estimated as low as 0.1 mg/kg, and is widely available in open markets in mainland China—this despite being prohibited for manufacture or sale in the PRC. Being a GABA antagonist, and having an extremely potent effect on the brain stem, many victims can quickly fall into convulsions and die within hours following ingestion. With no known effective antidote at this time, clinical data from the PRC show that acute cases of tetramine poisoning are extremely difficult to treat. The widespread use of tetramine—including its reported sale at a Malaysian outdoor market in September 2002—could exacerbate its hazard to public health, particularly in those areas having large overseas Chinese populations.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/f0f1tentjnjx5wb5/


Another article on multiple food poisonings:

The Chinese media have reported recent surge of deliberate food-poisoning incidents around country involving rat poison. A man accused spiking food served by rival restaurant owner executed after 42 people died 300 others became ill after eating poisoned food on Sept. 14 Tangshan, Jiangsu province.
Earlier week, last 70 children two teachers poisoned on Nov. 25 kindergarten Wuchuan, Guangdong province, were released hospital. A doctor who ran another kindergarten jealous rival facility's success had snuck into kitchen put "Dushuqiang" in the salt, but fortunately those who fell ill were saved, Xinhua said on Dec. 9.

China's Ministry Health says received reports 104 "serious food-poisoning accidents" across country in first 10 months year

http://www.probeinternational.org/pi/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=6146



This is from the BBC on poisoning incidents, including one in a school:
>>>

Correspondents say mass poisonings are not uncommon in China, and although most are due to negligence, some have been deliberate.

In August 2001, 120 people fell ill in a restaurant in Ningxiang, Hunan Province, after being poisoned by the owners of a noodle factory.
And there have been several cases of poisoning in schools in recent years.
Most recently, also in Hunan, 92 primary schoolchildren were stricken by poison in their lunch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2259718.stm


Another poisoning incident, but this one does not say rat poison or deliberate:
>>>

Over 80 people have been sickened after having dinner at a restaurant in Wuhai City in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the past week.
About 40 people are still in hospital and the restaurant has been

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-04/30/content_327814.htm

[havocmom]

1. Corporate Terrorists are all the rage right now

Halliburton serving up untreated river water with raw sewage to our troops in Iraq, meat plants using faster methods that splatter gut contents on meat for our tables, shit on spinach...

Bin Laden hasn't done nearly the damage our leaders have done in allowing the corporations to get away with murders.

[CottonBear]

2. Yikes! That is truly scary. A friend's daughter visited China last year

and, of course, they ate out. I wonder if tourists and foreginers have eaten tainted food. :scared:

[NewJeffCT]

3. There are so many people

That even though these incidents have stood out for me thousands of miles away in the US, it is a small fraction of the people eating in restaurants there.

It is actually probably more common for people in the major eastern cities (Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, etc) to eat out at a restaurant than it is to stay at home & cook. My father & mother in law are both in their mid 60s and neither one is much of a cook because they go out to eat so often. My wife never cooked at all before coming to the US...

[CottonBear]

11. Good point. Very interesting info about how many Chinese eat out. n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

4. Thanks for your perspective, NewJeff.

Very interesting.

[HereSince1628]

5. Let me feed this...did you know that a Friskies plant in Jefferson Wisconsin

was one of the locations placed on a special list for places at risk for terrorist attack?

When this came out maybe 2 years ago, I thought it was just a sort of sick way that Jimmy Sensenbrenner could move Homeland Security money to a more rural community in his district.

But who knows???? :shrug: Maybe Jimmy knew something!?

[Mind_your_head]

6. Very interesting thought there....

thanks for putting that post together.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. The Chinese gluten/wheat is Bigfoot's doing.

Since I have in-laws in the Pacific Northwest, I tend to follow stories about Bigfoot a little more closely than most on DU.

In the 5 1/2 years I have had in-laws in the PNW, I have heard several stories about incidents in how bigfoot made my cousin Charlie swerve off the road that one early morning after leaving the tavern, and crash his pickup into a douglas fir. Now, even if Bigfoot had ran across the road in order to cause him to crash intentionally, I would imagine it would be very difficult for Charlie to clear his name, as his blood alcohol level was four or five times the legal limit. And, would people really be go looking for bigfoot and not have a few anyway?

From this, it does not take a Great Leap in logic to see something similar happening in another food-related industry: I think it is a case of bigfoot/chemtrail/magic hypnosis straight out of the days of Salem spirituality of the late 1600s.

If you are bigfoot, and you're constantly being hounded by cryptozoologists and unleashed canines, one way to quickly knock off your pursuers would be to sneak into their ranks and sprinkle your magic bigfoot dust on their food. Even if it was proven to be Bigfoot, do you think they're going to fuck with Bigfoot again?

And, if you wanted to hurt Menu Foods, without mauling them while they're strolling through the woods, the poisoning has obviously succeeded. I am sure if they are a public company, their stock has taken a beating these past few weeks, not as bad as getting between with the fallen trunk of a red cedar, but a beating nonetheless. If the company can avoid bankruptcy over this incident, they are going to have to retool their whole supply chain and spend years regaining public trust. And by then bigfoot will have safely crossed the border into canada.

If it was an intentional poisoning by bigfoot, and it is, then bigfoot is obviously counting on negligent or corrupt skeptics in the PNW coupled with lax and declining searches of backwoods here in the PNW and the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

[pnwmom]

8. I think you've been eating too much Chinese gluten.

:hi:

[Mind_your_head]

13. Yours is a very disingenuous attempt to discredit a reasonable explanation

for these current problems/issues.

Do you have anything ELSE to offer? Explanations? Theories?

Don't let us DU'ers, et al, stop you in just "putting it all out there".

Truth, honesty, and transparency is cleansing.....except for those who are so dirty that, once given a thorogh hosing, will never be washed clean.


edit: typo

[Codeine]

15. Because this isn't an "explanation" or even much of a "theory."

It's just random nonsense with a half-assed Appeal to Authority appended to it to add some weight.

Not everything is an evil conspiracy or the result of back-room machinations between shadowy corporate hitmen. Sometimes stupidity, negligence, and just plain bad luck are to blame -- it's likely to prove to be the case here as well.

[kestrel91316]

9. Nah. My money is on negligence.

[NewJeffCT]

12. It's possible

but, I wouldn't rule out something like what I had mentioned.

[redqueen]

10. Interesting...

Thanks for all the links.

[REP]

14. Some Fatal Flaws:

The pet deaths have been linked to melamine, used a fertilizer, not a rodenticide.

MenuFoods is the manufacturer for most brands of dog and cat food; there simply isn't a rival to put out of business. The other companies who manufacture their own canned food are small specialty brands, and hardly a threat to MenuFoods.

The Chinese manufacturer of wheat gluten has nothing to gain by posioning foreign pets, and to gain the MenuFoods contract, a rival manufacturer would merely need to place a better offer; poisoning MenuFoods end clients woud only mean a lowered demand for wheat gluten from any source.

[ruiner4u]

16. This just adds to fear and paranoia...

I have lost all confidence in the FDA over the last few years, but what you are suggesting is ludicrous and needs to be given the same treatment as other tinfoil hat theories. To the dungeon!

China has no problem with dealing with internal problems on their own time, but they wont allow things to seep into their biggest trading partner...

to suggest this was on purpose just adds to the fear and uncertainty that many pet owners are going though right now and this entire thread is bogus.

get real facts and use real common sense before you scare anyone else. Chinese companies wont do anything to hurt their purse strings <us>.