Journey of tainted toothpaste ends in Ga. jail

Next stop: Seattle and Tacoma
PIERS Global Intelligence Solutions, a commerce data company based in New Jersey, traced the shipping of the SpringFresh toothpaste for The Associated Press. The company found 17 shipments of SpringFresh to the United States in 2006 and 2007, on vessels that departed Shanghai, Yantian and Hong Kong. All came in through the ports of Tacoma or Seattle.

American Amenities, a family-owned importing business based in Woodinville, Wash., received the shipments.

The FDA has seven full-time inspectors at the port of Seattle and three in Tacoma. But the agency was not testing toothpaste until DEG was discovered in Chinese-made toothpaste by Panamanian officials.

In late May, the FDA began pulling tubes from U.S. retailers, importers and distributors. Ultimately, 140 samples of Chinese toothpaste were tested, with 38 percent positive for DEG.

On June 1, the FDA issued a warning about more than a dozen brands of Chinese-made toothpaste.

SpringFresh was not on the initial list, but American Amenities did its own tests and found DEG in some tubes. Company officials declined to release the test results.

The FDA looked at SpringFresh in late June, checking samples from 12 tubes, including nine from American Amenities in Washington State and three from Georgia. One Georgia tube was 6 percent DEG — one of the highest levels seen in the United States, an FDA spokesman said.

Even at those levels, the chemical would rarely be deadly. According to an FDA calculation based on 6-ounce tubes of toothpaste that are 3 percent DEG, a 150-pound adult would have to eat more than 175 tubes to receive a fatal dose. A 22-pound child would have to eat 25 tubes.

American Amenities rejected a June shipment after testing stock in the U.S. and sending contracted workers to the Chinese manufacturer to check the product at the plant.

The company stopped buying SpringFresh. “They’re out of the Chinese toothpaste business,” said Jesse Lyon, a lawyer acting as American Amenities’ spokesman.

The company stands to lose at least $100,000 from the recall and associated costs — a big hit to a business that employs just six people, Lyon said.

American Amenities has not sued the manufacturer, but is negotiating to get the Chinese company to help offset the losses, the lawyer said.

Final destination
In 2002, Georgia contracted with American Amenities to provide low-cost toiletries and other items. The state got the toothpaste for about 9 cents per 1.5-ounce tube.

The biggest buyer was the Georgia Department of Corrections, which runs Metro State Prison, a 900-inmate facility for women in south Atlanta. Each week, the prison distributed SpringFresh tubes.

Inmates liked its versatility.

“With SpringFresh, if you had a spot on your shirt, you could take out the spot. You could clean shoes with it. You could clean anything with it,” Painter said.

Toothpaste is generally good for cleaning shoes and metal objects. “It may not be related to the DEG,” said Mays, of Consumers Union.

American Amenities told the state about the DEG problem, and corrections officers collected the toothpaste on June 12. Inmates said they knew it was serious because anyone who did not turn in the tubes would lose privileges or face other penalties.

No one at the prison reported illness from SpringFresh, and some inmates were more unhappy about the chalky, India-made Nature Mint toothpaste distributed in its place.

“Makes you want to throw up. It’s nasty,” Painter said.

At least one inmate liked it well enough, though. The prison’s only recall-related grievance came from an inmate who wanted more Nature Mint. It’s distributed just once every two weeks — not often enough to sustain her brushing, she complained.

The prison now has 14,939 tubes of recalled SpingFresh, bundled into 104 cartons and loaded on a pallet outside its warehouse. They probably will be dumped into a landfill, a corrections official said.

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