Authorities are investigating whether two companies from Danyang, China, exported tainted toothpaste as more contaminated product, including some made for children, has turned up in Latin America. According to The New York Times, "toothpaste containing the toxic solvent was also found in Panama and Australia in the last week. No tainted toothpaste was found in the United States.

Bautista Rojas Gómez, the secretary of health of the Dominican Republic, said the toothpaste, with diethylene glycol listed as an ingredient, was found in stores and warehouses across the country, including near the Haitian border.

Diethylene glycol is the same poison that the Panamanian government unwittingly mixed into cold medicine last year, killing at least 100 people. In that case, the poison — falsely labeled as glycerin, a harmless syrup — originated in China, shipping records show. Diethylene glycol is generally less expensive than its chemical cousin glycerin."

Since this comes after tainted pet food from China arrived in the U.S., the oversights indicate a lack of regulation, supervision and perhaps laws that could have prevented harm and potential harm.

U.S. and Chinese officials this week held their first high-level face-to-face meeting since pets in North America were sickened or killed by pet food contaminated with tainted wheat gluten imported from China. Several U.S. Cabinet members and top Chinese trade officials completed two days of talks in Washington, D.C., and the Bush administration said it made it perfectly clear food safety is a "top concern."

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told ABC News that China is aware that the "world market will not tolerate unreliable products," saying that the market will be the enforcer.

For decades, American companies learned that self-regulation and attention to quality, as well as packaging and labeling, truly matter. America's litigious society, while a burden for manufacturers, adds to costs forcing American consumers to choose between cheap but possibly unsafe, and reasonably priced but safe. Actually, this applies to less well-known products, too. For example, a few years ago a wooden organ bench was reported to possibly collapse because not enough glue was used during assembly. Sold primarily to churches and theaters, the product was recalled voluntarily by the Pennsylvania-based firm.

Just as "made in America" has often been synonymous with "more expensive" it's beginning to mean "made to higher standards" unless China makes some changes in its manufacturing operations. The dangerous oversights don't necessarily mean that the Chinese value life any less than Americans do, but it could mean that there are some neglectful (or ignorant?) people holding positions that they're not qualified to hold. This can happen in any country, of course. Or these tainted products could mean that there are a few people who are so greedy, they'll use cheaper but dangerous ingredients without regard to customer needs and wishes. This also occurs in many countries. America's system of checks and balances may minimize such occurrences of malicious intent, but it doesn't totally eliminate it.

It will be interesting to see what investigations on the toothpaste manufacturing failures in China show. The Chinese may own increasing amounts of corporate America and real estate, but they're creating a public relations challenge for themselves when they don't play by rules their customers want to play by. This doesn't even touch on the controversial intellectual property issues aplenty in China.

Both Americans and, increasingly, Chinese are also concerned about air pollution and other environmental challenges that affect health and sustainability, and some companies are helping out. For example, Home Depot urges customers to look for wood products with the Forest Stewardship Council-certified label, which indicates the wood comes from forests where environmental, social and economic interests and benefits are safeguarded.

It also appears like an increasing number of American consumers don't want to associate with companies that sell products associated with, well, misery; specifically, in labor. The movie "Blood Diamond" has probably created a consumer generation that will ask, "Was my wife's diamond mined by slaves?"

Remember the PR disaster Nike faced when its manufacturing facilities were profiled in the early 1990s?

According to BusinessWeek more than a decade later:

When Nike was getting pummeled on the subject [of exploiting laborers] in the 1990s, it typically responded with anger and panic. Since then, Nike has constructed an elaborate program to deal with labor issues in the 900-odd supplier factories (none owned by Nike) that churn out its products in some 50 countries. [In 2004], a staff of 97 inspected several hundred factories a year, graded them on labor standards, and worked with managers to improve problems. Nike also allowed random factory inspections by the Fair Labor Assn. (FLA), a monitoring outfit founded by human rights groups and companies such as Nike, Reebok, and Liz Claiborne.

Do Chinese manufacturers understand these American customer concerns? What are your thoughts?