The U.S. Patriot Act, protecting Americans from ROTH-IRA investing Brits and Extra Strong Mints
As a law abiding US Resident Alien I wasn’t expecting to cross paths with the US Patriot Act much. So I was surprised that in the last week or so I’ve had two interactions with it.
About a week ago I contacted Merril Lynch to set up a Roth-IRA. As we talked on the phone the M.L. employee informed me I’d have to answer questions to satisfy requirements of said Act. Puzzling I must say as terrorists don’t strike me as the types to save for their retirement. Also I thought one of their aims was to get rid of the western way of life so investing in capatalism doesn’t make much sense. Being the co-operative type I answered all his questions, none of which elicted any information the US Government didn’t already have on me.
A trival matter you might suppose when considering just me but repeated thousands of times the cost starts to build. Plus I suspect the hunt for Osama Ben Ladin was advanced not a jot.
Today I was told that Trebor Extra Strong Mints have now been banned from the US. Apparently the US Patriot Act has galvanised the FDA to examine imported sweets (candies to Yanks) much more closely and they’ve decided my favourite confection is verbotten. (Given that almost no American has ever heard of this product, let along eaten it, I’m flumoxed.) What terriost threat is posed by these sweets is a mystery.
I’ve checked the ingredients list, just in case there was a dangerous cancer causing additive in them and everything appears to be legal in the US. I have not been able to discover from the FDA site why these mints are so dangerous. (Basically they’re sugar – here’s the ingredient list from the label Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Modified Starch Flavouring, Gelatine, Stabaliser E415, Colour E132, may contain traces of Sulphite.)
My main suspicions have focused on Gelatine as it’s a cow product and the UK had a serious problem with BSE some years ago. Documents I found on the FDA web site suggest that as of 1997 gelatine was not considered a threat as long as appropriate procedures were followed. Given the attention to this issue in the UK I would suspect that it is one of the safest places to eat cow products these days.
If you know why these mints are such a threat to life and limb in the United States of America but perfectly safe in the United Kingdom, would you please be kind enough to let me know?
Current temperature 32F/0C (windchill 29F/-2C)
March 23rd, 2005 at 3:16 pm
It’s all down to the U in flavouring. It obviously failed the FDA spellchecker and was therefore tagged as an unknown substance!
If things get desperate I could put together a food parcel of mints and porridge