FDA orders purity testing for blood thinner coming into country

WASHINGTON - U.S. health officials have ordered all imports of the blood thinner heparin, and its raw ingredient, stopped at the border for testing to detect a contaminant linked to 19 deaths.

The Food and Drug Administration announced the move Friday, the latest step in its widening investigation of hundreds of allergic-type reactions linked to Baxter International's heparin injections.

The FDA found the contaminant in 20 of 28 samples of raw heparin that the agency tested from Baxter's main supplier, a Chinese factory owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories.

different brand of heparin also has been recalled in Germany after 80 patients there got sick, and the German manufacturer said Friday that it was narrowing down the source of contamination to another Chinese supplier.

FDA announced some good news Friday, saying it had learned of no additional deaths and just two more allergic reactions since Baxter recalled the last of the suspect heparin late last month

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23636845/

At first I thought you said "All heroin imports halted at U.S. border." Do you realize how many drug enforcement people that would put out of work? Half the cops in America (local, county, state, fed.) would have to collect unemployment!

LOL heroin