Products Recall in the US

Products recalls in the US happen so frequently that it’s annoying especially because most of the products here in Belize come from US.

The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) recall products several times in a month and I ask myself why these products are released to the public before they are properly inspected? This month FDA will give approval of a certain product, after several months the product is recalled. Is it because products are no longer tested on animals due to animal cruelty and instead are tested on us?

When products are recalled no one alerts anyone here in Belize and they are definitely not removed from the store shelves. It’s up to the consumer
to be alert and watch (US) news all the time. I will not be surprised to learn that most of the recalled products actually end up here in Belize. It seems like there are no strong regulations and being the small fish among the big, you will end up being the dumping ground for substandard goods.

Most of the recalls are drugs, food and baby products. Last month I saw a recall of a baby formula. There was a woman who actually had the formula and showed it in the television, a live bug was walking inside the baby formula and the expiry date was still one year ahead. That was disgusting. Just this week there has been a recall of hormones drugs for oestrogen and progesterone, and a recall for (I think it was) 2 million baby trolleys. I wonder if they destroy these baby trolleys or they could end up in my country Kenya.

On the hand I said to myself, mmmhhmmm… there are hardly any recalls in my country Kenya. So does it mean my gov’t is doing a great job in inspection or are they doing nothing? It can’t be that they are so perfect. I’m curious to know what would happen if they do their job properly; will we have so many recalls like in the US? But one thing you can be sure of, you can never walk in a store/supermarket and see an expired product still lying on the shelves sold at a discount price like here in Belize.

Most of the recalls are of USA made products, for China made the list is infinite and needs its own post.