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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat Hampsha's Avatar
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    The Cat Be Unemployed

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/ny...e&ref=nyregion


    " The investigation began with a small vial of blue-green liquid. Roughly two inches tall, it came in a
    yellow and blue box covered with Chinese characters, and, in English, the words “The Cat Be Unemployed.”
    It was rat poison and it was illegal.

    The pesticide, apparently smuggled into the United States from China, contained a deadly ingredient in a
    concentration almost 61 times greater than federal regulations allow, according to court papers. Its
    ingestion could kill a small child, the papers said.

    Several bottles were among 6,000 packages of rat and cockroach poison that were seized from
    small shops and street vendors in and around Chinatown during a sweeping five-month undercover
    investigation into the sale of illegal pesticides, according to interviews with federal and state officials
    and court papers. The results of the investigation are expected to be announced on Monday.

    The inquiry, which involved half a dozen agencies that enforce laws regarding pesticides,
    culminated last week when investigators executed 14 search warrants, mostly in Chinatown,
    arrested 12 people on federal and state criminal charges — all misdemeanors — and conducted
    nearly four dozen civil inspections, the officials said.

    The agencies involved in the investigation, including the federal Environmental Protection Agency,
    the offices of the district attorney and the United States attorney in Manhattan, and the state’s
    Department of Environmental Conservation, said their inquiry highlighted the widespread sale of toxic
    pesticides in densely populated neighborhoods where vermin abound.

    “A lot of these products are carcinogenic, they’re neurotoxic and they have the potential to do long-term
    damage,” Judith Enck, the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator, said in an interview
    Friday. “E.P.A. is particularly concerned about children coming into contact with these products because
    children are particularly vulnerable to the toxic impact — their bodies are still developing. Little kids are
    constantly putting their hands in their mouths, toys in their mouth, sucking on the end of the couch.
    So if these products are used in the home, they are particularly risky for children and pets.”

    The vial with the label “The Cat Be Unemployed” contained brodifacoum, an anticoagulant that kills
    rodents by causing them to bleed to death internally. The chemical is so dangerous, officials said,
    that the use of pesticides containing the ingredient has long been barred in urban areas unless it is
    applied by licensed professionals wearing protective gear and using special equipment.

    The vial came to the attention of state and federal authorities because a woman who bought it in the
    East Broadway Mall in Chinatown last year later mistook it for medicine and consumed some, the papers
    said. She became seriously ill, losing two-thirds of her blood volume.

    Children are at particular risk for exposure to rat and mouse poisons because the products are typically
    placed on floors, and because young children sometimes place bait pellets in their mouths, according to
    Adrian J. Enache, a toxicologist who is the E.P.A.’s pesticides program manager in New York. The agency
    has in the past cited figures from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, which annually
    receives 12,000 to 15,000 reports of children under the age of 6 being exposed to these kinds of pesticides.

    Ms. Enck and other officials acknowledge that it is difficult to gauge the scope of the problem and its
    impact on children accurately because many cases of poisoning go unreported. Indeed, when these kinds
    of products cause problems in children, like eye and skin irritations, nausea, vomiting and worse, parents
    are often unaware that the pesticides are at fault, she said.

    The Environmental Protection Agency, which registers pesticides and regulates their production, sale and
    use, has banned the use of brodifacoum in rat poisons in the United States except in products where it is
    contained in enclosed traps that would make it extremely difficult for children

    But those regulations apply to legal, registered pesticides, and the investigation showed that the
    dangerous unregistered products are widely available in Chinatown.

    Over the last five months, undercover investigators bought illegal pesticides in shops on Madison,
    Mott, South Eldridge and Pike Streets in Chinatown, the officials said.

    Ten of those arrested last week were charged in state court and will be prosecuted by the Manhattan
    district attorney’s office; two others, one identified in court papers as a wholesaler of the illegal pesticides
    and the other a grocery store owner who was charged with selling thousands of packets of the products
    to undercover investigators, will be prosecuted in federal court.
    Related



    “Some of these illegal products look and smell like cookie crumbs, making them dangerously tempting
    to children,” the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said in a statement. “Some of the other
    products are so toxic that one small vial can kill an adult male.”

    Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement “These defendants were
    literally peddling poison to an unwitting public, putting the health and safety of their customers and
    their families in jeopardy.”

    The case also involved Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s office of investigations and United States
    postal inspectors. The investigation is continuing with authorities focusing on identifying and tracking
    down the sources of the unregistered pesticides, according to David G. McLeod Jr., the assistant special
    agent in charge of the E.P.A.’s criminal investigation division in New York.

    The wholesaler, Jai Ping Chen, 43, was charged with conspiracy and four counts of selling unregistered
    pesticides. The grocery store owner, Cheng Yan Huang, 56, was charged with nine counts of similar crimes.
    If convicted, both men face a year in prison for each count.

    The 10 men and women charged in state court face multiple misdemeanor charges, in some cases hundreds
    of counts, and while the jail time is negligible, many of the violations carry a maximum fine of $5,000 per count.

    Ms. Enck said she believed that people buy the products because when they have pest or rodent problems
    in their homes or businesses, “they want to buy something they think is going to be the strongest and most potent product.”

    She added, “Unfortunately, these are readily available and there is an assumption that if they’re sold in stores,
    they’re legal — and another reason is they are relatively cheap.” "





    Ancient Chinese secret!






    I'm sure if they took a look around the shops they would easily find numerous products that were banned and lots of illegals working for them.

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat
    BugginOut's Avatar
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    The Cat Be Unemployed...must've used a marketing agency in Harlem.

  3. #3
    Ocean Transient
    Sailing into trouble's Avatar
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    In Loei, I found cat traps! Bloody big things like rat traps.

  4. #4
    Tax Consultant
    Thormaturge's Avatar
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    The problem is with the dogs in this country.

    They're too darned lazy.

    I saw a dog laying on the pavement beside a food cart just watching three pigeons squabbling over some left-over food.

    She just lay there watching

    Then a cat appeared and scared the pigeons off.

    The dog just sat and watched. She wasn't at all interested in the birds, the cat or anything else. At the top of the food chain, all she had to do was remain beside a food cart and watch the world go by.
    I see fish. They are everywhere. They don't know they are fish.

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