Colgate-Palmolive put out a statement that "it does not use, nor has ever used, diethylene glycol as an ingredient in its toothpaste". Whew, what a relief! That puts all my fears to rest--how about you? Now if we can only get Campbell's Soup to assure us that they don't use arsenic in their soup, all will be right with the world.
Guess what--I don't want Colgate to tell me that they don't use anti-freeze in their toothpaste. What I want them to tell me is that they don't use any Chinese ingredients. But we probably aren't going to hear that from them, because they can't make that statement--at least, that's my guess.
Why do I care about this? What does this mean? Well, over in China, there's some guy who owns a factory that makes goop to be dispensed into toothpaste, or hair shampoo, or whatever. His kid needs braces, and his car needs a new carburetor.
He could fix his car, and his kid's teeth, if he improves his profits by adulterating the mix of his product a bit. Hmmmm....
Seem like the only thing standing between his kid's braces, and me brushing my teeth with poison, is his sense of ethics and love of America. And he loves his North American pals, right? We are his trading partners, his amigos, right?
Well, maybe not. His country spends the equivalent of about $400,000,000,000 per year on their military, and a good chunk of that goes towards building missiles to point at North America. Self defense? Hard to imagine a scenario where we would attack the country that makes all our tv sets, dvd players, and just about everything else. Nope, self defense doesn't quite fit. You figure it out.
If we don't want to rely on Chinese ethics and love, then our government should require that North American companies who use Chinese ingredients in products that we eat, or put in our mouths, or on our skin, should label them so, and let us choose if we want to use them.
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