I just bought Colgate toothpaste imported from South Africa in a Canadian dollar store
Update #1: Colgate Canada says this isn't their product and wants to get their hands on the tube.
Update #2: It looks like Colgate Canada is quietly picking up the faux toothpaste.
Update #3: The story has been picked up by the main stream media and is spreading quickly across Canada.
Colgate insists that it does not import toothpaste into the United States from South Africa. Any such products are counterfeits, and might contain diethylene glycol, a component of antifreeze known to be toxic to humans.
So I have to ask myself, why is it that Colgate imports South African toothpaste into Canada? Or is the toothpaste I am holding in my hand also a counterfeit? And is it poisonous?
At the local dollar store, I picked up a tube of Colgate Fluoride Toothpaste, Gel, with Calcium.
Here are scans of the box:
As you can see, the label clearly says "Manufactured by: Colgate-Palmolive (PTY) Ltd., South Africa - 528 Commissioner Street, Boksburg, 1460".
Colgate-Palmolive Co. on Thursday said counterfeit "Colgate" toothpaste that may contain a toxic chemical had been found in discount stores in four U.S. states.
"There are indications that this product does not contain fluoride and may contain diethylene glycol," the company said in a statement.
Colgate-Palmolive said the counterfeit toothpaste was found in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. It can be recognized because it is labeled as being manufactured in South Africa, and the company does not import toothpaste to the United States from South Africa.
The packaging also contains several misspellings, Colgate said, adding that it was working closely with the FDA to help identify those responsible for the counterfeit product.
I don't know what Colgate-Palmolive's policy is in Canada. Maybe they do import South African toothpaste here.
Disturbingly, this box also has misspellings (the third picture highlights two of them), though different from the ones reported in the United States:
"Children 6 years and under shoild have adult supervision..."
"Coigate Gel's dual Fluoride forumula heips lock in..."
"Colgate helps protect your teeth agalnst cavities."
Now what sort of legitimate packaging misspells Colgate?
So I have to ask myself, does Colgate import poorly labeled toothpaste products into Canada from South Africa? Or is this a case similar to the United States, where a counterfeit product is being sold as Colgate?
And if the product is fake, are the contents fake too?
Are some Canadians brushing their teeth with antifreeze?
Update: From the LawFuel Law News Network:
MS USA Trading, Inc. of North Bergen, NJ, is recalling all lots of 5 ounce tubes of Colgate, because it has the potential to be contaminated with diethylene glycol (DEG) chemical found in anti-freeze. MS USA Trading is concerned about potential risks from chronic exposure to DEG and exposure to DEG in certain populations, such as children and individuals with kidney or liver disease.
Colgate was distributed in NJ, NY, PA and MD in discount retail stores.
The product comes in a 5 ounce (100ml), made in South Africa is printed on the box. The recall includes the following brands: Regular, Gel, Triple and Herbal.
The tube I bought is 100ml, with "5 oz" attached as a sticker attached on one end. It is a "Gel" brand.
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Comments
"this box also has misspellings"
...maybe da toothpaste was mont to go to Jamaica mon...
Posted by: tomax7 at June 14, 2007 02:34 PM
Wow. And people were laughing at you.
I expect you'll be making a trip down to the local university to find someone willing to run a few tests?
(You should change the title of the post to "I just bought Coigate toothpaste...")
Posted by: mecheng at June 14, 2007 03:00 PM
Bring it back, don't use it. I'm increasingly suspicious of those bargain stores, especially items that have contact with your innards.
I will no longer shop at those places, even for clothes.
I'd rather pay more and have peace of mind.
Posted by: louise marion at June 14, 2007 03:03 PM
I am also curious about test results, I assume you are getting it tested. I think I'll stop by my local dollar store tonight as well and see what they have.
Posted by: The Hammer of Thor at June 14, 2007 03:04 PM
This is a problem, but not for the reason you're worried.
Toothpaste from countries like South Africa have much higher doses of Fluoride, which is good for Africans, but not for us. We get decent, and safe, amounts of fluoride in our drinking water, and a bit in our toothpaste. In South Africa, they don't have fluoride in their water, so they put extra fluoride in their toothpaste.
Fluoride in high enough amounts can be toxic (as anything in a high enough dose can be). For this reason alone, that toothpaste should be yanked from shelves.
Reference:
http://www.snop es.com/inboxer/household/toothpaste.asp (space in the URL added to get past comment filter)
Posted by: jonny_eh at June 14, 2007 03:07 PM
Tested? I don't know where to begin. Anyway, no time. But I think some of the media are interested and I'm sure they would rush a test as part of their story, should they pick it up.
Posted by: Steve Janke at June 14, 2007 03:07 PM
Thanks Johnny. I looked at toothpaste tubes at the local Shoppers Drug Mart, and they ones I checked we made in Canada or the United States, presumably with appropriate levels of fluoride.
Now the labelling of this tube shows fluoride concentration identical to North American toothpaste, so if it was made for export, that would be expected.
If it was made for export...by Colgate...hmmmm.
Posted by: Steve Janke at June 14, 2007 03:11 PM
I wouldn't trust the ingredients on the box, since it's counterfeit. You can't even trust the logo!
For all we know, it has no fluoride, too much fleuoride, or even cat feces.
Posted by: jonny_eh at June 14, 2007 03:26 PM
Colgate-Palmolive had definitely been making toothpaste in South Africa for at least thirty years to my own personal knowledge and their SA corporate headquarters is indeed in Boksburg--it's a suburb of Johannesburg (near the airport).
If the toothpaste was real it would be fine because Colgate-Palmolive has worldwide standards and South Africa has a reasonably good system of regulatory control, but I think that what you have may very well be of dubious origins. . . South Africans can spell as well as anyone else can in a primarily english-speaking country. In addition, the packaging of your tube does not appear to be printed to the standard I would expect. Colgate toothpaste is an 'upmarket' brand in SA and as such it's packaging should reflect that.
Posted by: Ben in Ontario at June 14, 2007 04:07 PM
I'd be willing to bet that the toothpaste is indeed official Colgate toothpaste.
What probably happened is that as you mentioned, they mispelled "Colgate" on the package. This mistake was obviously cauth after the fact. Instead of selling the product in South Afican chain stores they sold the product to a secondary wholeseller for pennies on the dollar.
This kind of stuff happens all the time. This January Effem foods apparently did a run of the family bags of M&M's using the Christmas packaging (4 weeks after Christmas). This product ended up in dollars stores (being sold for...$1). The same delicious M&M's but in the wrong packaging.
This isn't an issue of South Africa sending bad bad product to Canada, but about shipping it to "low end" stores. If you went to South African dollar stores I'd bet you'd find them there to.
Of coarse this could still very well be counterfit product. If it was made in China I would'nt use it to clean the enamel on my toilet bowl, let alone my teeth.
Posted by: Paul M at June 14, 2007 05:02 PM
You might be right Paul, but with the detection of DEG in South African sourced Colgate toothpaste in the US, the Canadian government needs to make a speedy determination of what the true situation is.
Posted by: Steve Janke at June 14, 2007 05:17 PM
I'd be tossing it in the garbage.
Posted by: joey j. at June 14, 2007 05:56 PM
I went to my local Rabba to buy lottery tickets today and they had that exact same toothpaste.
Posted by: ZiLLa at June 14, 2007 06:10 PM
Did you notice the misspellings on the ones you saw, ZiLLa?
Posted by: Steve Janke at June 14, 2007 07:18 PM
Colgate toothpaste from SA (and China too) is definitely available for import.
http://tinyurl.com/36yx8w
http://tinyurl.com/39fwh6
Or are these counterfeits?
Have to say we won't be buying Colgate toothpaste at all and will be checking other brands twice. May go back to baking soda :-)
Colgate Palmolive also produces Hills pet food some of which was recalled because of contaminated wheat gluten.
Posted by: WW at June 14, 2007 10:24 PM
Interestingly enough, I purchased a tube of 'Coigate' last week and your column prompted me to check its place of manufacture: "Made in Mexico". No apparent misspellings on my tube and the box had already been thrown out :-( Purchased from R.C. SuperStore (subsid of Loblaws)
Keep up the good work Steve,
Posted by: Phil at June 15, 2007 06:53 AM
You should contact Colgate about this. If it is a couterfeit then they'll want to know and will probably issue an alert or something. If it isn't a counterfeit then they'll probably apologize for the spelling errors.
Posted by: Iron Oxide at June 15, 2007 08:24 AM
Someone report this to some government official! The packaging is only in english! A travesty if ever there was one.
Well at least that would get the product pulled dangerous or not... sad to say
Posted by: mungman at June 15, 2007 08:30 AM
Someone report this to some government official! The packaging is only in English! A travesty if ever there was one.
Seriously, though, that's one of the hints that this product was not meant for Canada.
Posted by: Steve Janke at June 15, 2007 09:07 AM
...the wife just came home with a dozen of those smaller cone shaped stand up tubes. Most are made in USA and a couple from Ireland.
Posted by: tomax7 at June 15, 2007 10:25 AM
The problem I have with the bilingual packaging is that we all pay extra for special packaging for our market. I recently bought some electronics and there was an extra layer of bilingual labeling and shrinkwrap over the US packaging and shrinkwrap. Aside from the waste of dollars in the labelling for a small market where are the environmentalists on this...
Posted by: mungman at June 15, 2007 10:25 AM
I'm really commenting about a law suit, I would like more information.
I can't support you without knowing what the suit is for maybe you could email me the problem post, I would be very interested in knowing more of what this law suit is about.
Does anyone have a link to this post in question?
Posted by: blanks at June 19, 2007 12:59 PM
Testing for DEG vs glycerol vs propylene glycol or other glycols is quite simple, would take about a drop of sample and 20 minutes. Talk to your local test lab about GC with silylation. They may do it for fun!
Posted by: Moebius at June 20, 2007 07:45 PM
 
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