Source for the following info -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylene_glycolHere is the article -
....In recent years, deaths from medicines adulterated with diethylene glycol have been reported from
South Africa,
India,
Nigeria,
Argentina,
Haiti,
.27Brien_5-0>.27Brien-5">[6] Bangladesh[7] and
Panama.
[8] In Haiti in 1996, 85 children died due to
glycerine contaminated with diethylene glycol in a
paracetamol syrup produced by Pharval Laboratories, a Haitian company, which did not use standard quality assurance procedures to verify the purity of the glycerine. The glycerine supplied by a
Dutch company, Vos, from a
manufacturer in
China, but the point of contamination with DEG was never determined. In Bangladesh in 1990, 339 children developed kidney failure, and most of them died, after being given
paracetamol (acetaminophen) syrup contaminated with diethylene glycol. In October 2006 the
CDC and the Ministry of Health of
Panama detected toxic levels of diethylene glycol in a sugarless liquid
expectorant during an investigation of 46 deaths from a
syndrome characterized by
gastrointestinal symptoms,
renal failure and
paralysis. Almost all the victims were
hypertension and
diabetes patients in their 40s to 80s. The source of the contamination was found to be the Taixing Glycerine Factory, a Chinese company in Hengxiang, China. Taixing Glycerine sold diethylene glycol labeled as TD glycerine, which is an industrial name, through the state-owned Chinese trading company CNSC Fortune Way, based in Beijing. A Spanish middleman ordered these as TD glycerine, but when filled the custom declaration the name was changed to glycerine.
[9][10] A government agency in Panama purchased the falsely labeled product containing diethylene glycol and incorporated it into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine.
[11] The United States Food and Drug Administration issued an Industry Guidance Document highlighting .....
Just to empahsize that ethlene glycol poisoning is very common world wide and I believe a smart doctor would have diagnosed the disorder much earlier before hundreds died if they had focused on the full ABG report in a critically ill patient.
You be the smart one and read all ABG reports as we recommend in Arterial Blood Gas Analysis Made Easy ISBN 0965708373.