Since I enjoy researching not only about chronic illnesses but various treatments I came across articles about gutter oil being used in antibiotics.
Most know that the largest pharmaceutical plants are located in China and India. Cheap labor and the U.S. mark up the prices (big pharma).
What I found disturbing was that some manufacturing plants in China were using gutter oil as one of the ingredients in antibiotics instead of soybean oil to save on costs. The first articles I found were written by Gardiner Harris in the NY Times (I’m not posting them since I’m not going to pay for the articles). If you subscribe to the NY Times you can easily read the articles for yourself.
Who is Gardiner Harris? He is a former health, South Asia, White House and diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times.
Below are other articles:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-19469723
Food and drug safety authorities in China have told pharmaceutical firms to check their suppliers as they investigate reports that so called gutter oil is being used to make antibiotics.
The reprocessed kitchen waste, dredged from restaurant drains, has been implicated in a number of food safety scandals in the country.
The BBC’s Martin Patience reports from Beijing.
Then I found this:
China probes use of ‘gutter oil’ in antibiotics
Recycled from restaurant waste and cheaper than soybean oil
Chinese authorities are reportedly investigating allegations that several makers of antibiotics in China used so-called gutter oil — repurposed oil salvaged from restaurant waste, gutters, drains and animal fat — in their products instead of more expensive soybean oil.
The state news agency Xinhua and other Chinese media reported that several pharmaceutical companies used gutter oil instead of the more expensive soybean online in the manufacture of 7-aminocephalosporinic acid, or 7-ACA, a chemical used to produce a class of antibiotics called cephalosporins.
The companies reportedly bought the recycled cooking oil from a company called Huikang Grease Co., which is facing prosecution over its alleged processing and selling of thousands of tonnes of gutter oil in 2010 and 2011.
The Taiwanese paper Want China Times reported that Huikang originally bought the oil from a firm called Gelin Biology Company.
Reselling discarded oil lucrative
The names of several of Huikang’s suspected customers came out in court last week during the trial of several people charged in connection with the case, the Shanghai Daily reported.
Jiaozuo Joincare Biological Product Co., a subsidiary of the Joincare Pharmaceutical Group, Qilu Pharmaceutical and Charoen Pokphand Group are among the companies accused of buying the discarded oil and using it in their products.
Joincare issued a statement last Thursday saying it would work with the authorities looking into the matter, Xinhua reported.
Salvaging and reselling gutter oil is a lucrative business for the intermediaries who process it, filter it, blend it with edible oils and sell it on to restaurants, animal feed suppliers and drug makers looking for a cheaper alternative to vegetable, plant and other edible oils.
The Shanghai Daily reported that Huikang received around $22.5 million US for the roughly 14,700 tonnes of gutter oil it sold to Jiaozuo Joincare Biological Product Co.
Health effects unclear
Residue of the gutter oil may have ended up in antibiotics produced in China although it is unclear what health risks, if any, gutter oil poses. Some public health experts have said that the oil could contain excessive acid and cholesterol as well as possible carcinogens and other toxic substances.
China’s food and drug administration and local authorities in Jiaozuo, a city where the Joincare subsidiary operates, are looking into what potential health effects the inclusion of the substance in antibiotics may have, Chinese media reported.
It’s not the first time gutter oil has been in the news as authorities have stepped up efforts in recent years to stamp out the use of the recycled cooking oil and to generally improve the country’s dismal record on food safety.
Chinese suppliers have been involved in several high-profile scandals over the past five years involving food and health safety — including the tainting of infant formula, milk products, pet food and beer with various unsavoury chemical products not meant for human or animal for consumption.
From Natural News (I don’t know how accurate Natural News is, so come to your own conclusion):
As China continues to rise as the new Asian powerhouse, there has been a steady stream of reports which have detailed the country’s staggering lack of standards when it comes to producing manufactured goods, so it was only mildly shocking to learn that authorities there are now looking at charges that some of the country’s pharmaceutical companies are using disgusting “gutter oil” to make antibiotics.
For the uninformed (which included me before I came across this story), gutter oil is essentially reprocessed kitchen waste dredged from restaurant drains.
While you’re getting a mental picture, read on: Chinese authorities are responding to reports that drug makers may have used it to manufacture antibiotics instead of the more expensive (and, most likely, much cleaner) soybean oil.
What’s more, the gutter oil has apparently been at the heart of several food-safety scandals in China in recent months, the BBC reported, quoting Chinese officials – though in typical fashion, the government was secretive, saying it would release its findings soon without providing additional details.
I do not consider myself a fear monger but I think people should get as much information about what they put inside their bodies as possible.
I also found Diane Rehm’s show from 2014 interesting about the safety of prescription drugs made outside the U.S. which I will write about.
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