As the Los Angeles Times reports that cough medicine which included a toxic ingredient that originated in China may be to blame for at least 67 deaths in Panama, Asia Times reports on the abundance of fake goods, including dinosaur bones, streaming out of China:
There is something a bit geeky about faking dinosaur remains. One may even, tongue in cheek, concede that it spices up a rather dull industry. But as everybody by now knows, China’s master forgers don’t stick to Jurassic sculptures. Their hand has been discerned, directly or indirectly, in the death of at least 200,000 of their own countrymen – that’s an annual count for the only year, 2001, for which a comprehensive estimate is available – from fake medicines.
In fact, they appear to have very bad taste: they will forge anything. US authorities reckon that at least four out of every five fake items on sale in the West can be traced back to the smart guys in the southern province of Guangdong and elsewhere in China. [Full text]
