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How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

middleeastmonitor.com

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Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

rootsudo wrote: post #45
frereubu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, any time someone writes "just" in a sentence like this I'm immediately suspicious that it comes from a place of ignorance. What is your qualification to make such a sweeping statement?

1. You can read the ingreendients of IV fluid. 2. You can go online to different markets to see availability. 3. You can look up regulation to see if there are FDA limits that force USA health care to go to a specific vendor or approved vendor. It is very much known that you can arbitrage medical costs, drug costs by going to Canada and Mexico. It is very much also very simple to research, search and find vendors or…

> You can read the ingreendients of IV fluid.

Bread has four ingredients. Flour, water, salt, and yeast. Do you think all breads are therefore the same?

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#52

Post by drivebyhooting »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #21

If you don't want your corporation's supply chain at risk, maybe use your lobbying dollars to ask the executive branch to actually support foreign nations rather than let them fall into civil war. Sudan has had a military dictatorship from 1989-2019 (led by Omar al-Bashir). In 2017, both President Obama and President Trump lifted sanctions on Sudan, after al-Bashir reneged on a promise to step down just two years ear…

Ridiculous. The money is better spent establishing local production.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#53

Post by neuronexmachina »

ipsum2 wrote: post #38
ceejayoz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60% of IV fluids used in the US came from a single manufacturing plant that got hit by a hurricane last year. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/19/nx... My wife gets regular infusions and had to ration for months; the local hospital canceled elective surgeries as well.

IV fluids aren't even difficult to produce compared to gum arabic, its just different salts in water. This is just pure government regulation causing rationing and harming people. For those downvoting me, here's the American Medical Association: https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/fixin... > The Biden administration has invoked the Defense Production Act “to help speed up recovery efforts and get t…

My understanding is that the challenges around IV fluids aren't around producing the fluid, but rather ensuring that the containers are sterile and remain sterile.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#54

Post by ceejayoz »

throw94040 wrote: post #47
frereubu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, any time someone writes "just" in a sentence like this I'm immediately suspicious that it comes from a place of ignorance. What is your qualification to make such a sweeping statement?

With respect, parent comment is right. It is "just" destiled water with some salts. You also have to remove dissolved gasses and store it in good bags. Tricky part are contaminants and paperwork. We had similar situation in communist czechoslovakia. There was a plan to manufacture female hygiene products, in a single factory for entire country. This factory burned down on second year of five year plan. So for some ti…

We did import from Europe.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

Losing 60% of production in a country of 350M people is hard to make up from elsewhere, though.

The US is unlikely to be unique in this sort of thing. Everyone depends on Taiwan for chips, for example.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#55

Post by rootsudo »

ceejayoz wrote: post #51
rootsudo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. You can read the ingreendients of IV fluid. 2. You can go online to different markets to see availability. 3. You can look up regulation to see if there are FDA limits that force USA health care to go to a specific vendor or approved vendor. It is very much known that you can arbitrage medical costs, drug costs by going to Canada and Mexico. It is very much also very simple to research, search and find vendors or…

> You can read the ingreendients of IV fluid. Bread has four ingredients. Flour, water, salt, and yeast. Do you think all breads are therefore the same?

[flagged]

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#56

Post by ceejayoz »

rootsudo wrote: post #55
ceejayoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can read the ingreendients of IV fluid. Bread has four ingredients. Flour, water, salt, and yeast. Do you think all breads are therefore the same?

[flagged]

Ah, I thought this was a good-faith discussion. My bad.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#57

Post by Aloisius »

genewitch wrote: post #33
InitialLastName wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be learning the wrong lesson. US corporations have used "securing supply chains" to justify encouraging the US government to incite a whole lot of strife and conflict around the world in the last century-and-a-bit.

yes please, find another ingredient that doesn't involve smuggling it out of a war-torn country, at the very least. Unfortunately i didn't know this when i bought some and now i got a giant tub of conflict gum that i'll probably never use. I got it to make "Chocolate Frosty" that wouldn't have the tiny ice crystals in it. It didn't work, i think you have to put it in something that is hot in order to activate it, and…

Coca-cola itself doesn't appear to contain gum arabic, at least not in the US.

Outside the US, there are Coca-cola products that do though like some Schweppes and Fanta sodas.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#58

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

zdragnar wrote: post #24
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #21

If you don't want your corporation's supply chain at risk, maybe use your lobbying dollars to ask the executive branch to actually support foreign nations rather than let them fall into civil war. Sudan has had a military dictatorship from 1989-2019 (led by Omar al-Bashir). In 2017, both President Obama and President Trump lifted sanctions on Sudan, after al-Bashir reneged on a promise to step down just two years ear…

What do you think the executive branch of the USA could have done to prevent any of this instability? al-Burhan hardly seems better than al-Bashir.

1) don't reward a dictator after renegging on promises by allowing them more trade

2) use foreign policy maneuvers to pressure UAE to end its support for the paramilitary group

3) provide aid of our own which strengthens our position and gives us more options to end the paramilitary group's reign

4) install a new dictator. it's not a good option, but if the previous options don't work, I think the citizens of Sudan would admit it's better than genocide and starvation at this point.

Remember back in "Trump 1.0", when he stopped us from being involved in foreign affairs "because America First", and there were warnings that a lack of American presence would create a power vacuum that our enemies would fill? This is that outcome.

If we had been the ones providing aid instead of the Saudis and the UAE, this whole recent catastrophe might have been avoided. An important lesson for the current administration as they continue to end foreign aid to gain cheap political points.

And granted, I know a whole lot of people go "so what?" to genocide and starvation, but also Coke & M&Ms are now more expensive, so maybe that'll matter to them.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#59

Post by weaksauce »

ipsum2 wrote: post #38
ceejayoz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60% of IV fluids used in the US came from a single manufacturing plant that got hit by a hurricane last year. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/19/nx... My wife gets regular infusions and had to ration for months; the local hospital canceled elective surgeries as well.

IV fluids aren't even difficult to produce compared to gum arabic, its just different salts in water. This is just pure government regulation causing rationing and harming people. For those downvoting me, here's the American Medical Association: https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/fixin... > The Biden administration has invoked the Defense Production Act “to help speed up recovery efforts and get t…

> This is just pure government regulation causing rationing and harming people.

having worked in the space... you are at the level of knowledge of "you don't know what you don't know." it's regulated for good reason. WFI is ultra pure water and costs quite a bit of money to make and is one of the main ingredients in a lot of pharmaceuticals.

Re: How a key ingredient in Coca-Cola, M&M's is smuggled from war-torn Sudan

#60

Post by trhway »

xyst wrote: post #17
oersted wrote: post #9

And yet Gum Arabic is extremely cheap for the amounts needed. At $4-$7 per Kg in the US, the cost per Coke can would be in the order of 0.025 cents (guesstimate). This is interesting considering that 80% of the supply comes from Sudan. It is a nearly universal ingredient in processed foods and professional kitchens. I wonder how the economics work to push the price down. EDIT: Apparently naturally abundant Acacia tre…

Time to start up a business as a “conflict free” gum arabic supplier. Maybe they will make a movie about it: Lord of Gum

the conflict in Sudan isn't without usual players and the non-"conflict free" gum money go to Putin too :

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/africa/wagner-sudan-russia-li...

"The Russian mercenary group Wagner has been supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with missiles to aid their fight against the country’s army, Sudanese and regional diplomatic sources have told CNN."

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