Counterfeit toothpaste may contain harmful chemical

Counterfeit toothpaste may contain harmful chemical

 BETH JOHNSTON
The Daily News

At least eight tubes of counterfeit Colgate toothpaste - possibly containing harmful chemicals - were sold in metro last week.

The Everything For a Dollar stores in Clayton Park and the Atlantic Superstore Mall on Portland Street sold the fraudulent product, believed to contain diethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting thickening agent also used in antifreeze, before it was yanked off the shelves last Thursday.

Black-market manufacturers have been known to use the chemical in place of the sweetener glycerin because it's much cheaper.

"I hope nothing happened to anybody. I really feel sorry for this," said Lacewood Drive store manager Nahid Ababaf.

Last Thursday, Ababaf got a call from her shipping company, FHD, ordering her to take the toothpaste off the shelves immediately.

"He said, 'No questions, just repack it and don't sell it,'" she said.

She had already sold five tubes to unknown customers.

In her backroom yesterday, the fake toothpaste waited to be picked up. Its labels claimed it was approved by the South African Dental Assoxiation (sic), but several misspellings and blurry labels were obvious.

Published reports have said U.S. federal regulators are stepping up their scrutiny of Chinese-made goods, which account for more than 60 per cent of the recalls the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced so far this year.

The South African "Colgate" got caught in that dragnet, FDA spokesman Doug Arbesfeld said.

FDA testing showed the South African-labelled toothpaste contained three per cent diethylene glycol.

"It's a low health risk, but the bottom line is, it doesn't belong in toothpaste," Arbesfeld said of the chemical.

Diethylene glycol has been blamed for the deaths of at least 51 people in Panama after the chemical was imported from China and mixed into cough syrup and other medicines.

Inside the Atlantic Superstore Mall on Portland Street in Dartmouth, Everything For a Dollar store manager Jenny Quek said the toothpaste was on her shelves for two days last week and she sold at least three tubes.

"I am very concerned; I thought Colgate was a good brand," she said.

She said she ordered the toothpaste from a man named "Al" at a company called FHD. A janitor who answered the phone at the number last night said everyone had gone for the day.

The recalled toothpaste was labelled as made in South Africa, but its toxic ingredient previously has been found in Chinese-made toothpastes. Colgate-Palmolive pointed out the packages it had examined bore several misspellings, including "SOUTH AFRLCA." That suggests even the bogus product's true origin may have been faked.

Health Canada is investigating.

Provincial RCMP spokesman Grant Webber said yesterday he has contacted the Commercial Crime Unit in Ottawa and is awaiting a response.

bjohnston@hfxnews.ca