Consumers were advised Friday to discard all toothpaste made in China after federal health officials said they found Chinese-made toothpaste containing a poison related to a chemical used in antifreeze in three locations: Miami, the Port of Los Angeles and Puerto Rico.

Although there are no reports of anyone being harmed by the toothpaste, the Food and Drug Administration warned that the Chinese products had a "low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury" to children and people with kidney or liver disease.

The United States is the seventh country to find tainted Chinese toothpaste within its borders in recent weeks.

Chinese toothpaste is usually sold at bargain or dollar stores, and in ethnic groceries. It represents only about $3.3 million of the $2 billion U.S. toothpaste market, the FDA said. Makers include Goldcredit International Trading Co. and Suzhou City Jinmao Daily Chemicals Co.

No major brand names are affected, regulators said.

Agency officials said they found toothpaste containing a small amount of diethylene glycol, a sweet, syrupy poison, at a Dollar Plus retail store in Miami, sold under the brand name ShiR Fresh Mint Fluoride Paste. The FDA also identified nine other brands of Chinese toothpaste that contain diethylene glycol, some with concentrations of 3 percent to 4 percent.

The agency said toothpaste containing diethylene glycol was sold under the names Cooldent Fluoride, Cooldent Spearmint,

Previously, only a few brands had been identified by health officials around the world as containing diethylene glycol, and all of them listed the chemical on the label.

But diethylene glycol was not listed on the label of the toothpaste found in the Miami store. Its presence was detected only because the FDA began testing imported Chinese toothpaste last month. That precaution was prompted by the discovery in Latin America of tens of thousands of tubes of tainted toothpaste made in China.

Because of the inconsistent labeling, the FDA advised consumers to throw away all toothpaste made in China, regardless of the brand or what is or isn't listed among the ingredients.

Over the years, counterfeiters have found it profitable to substitute diethylene glycol for its chemical cousin, glycerin, which is usually more expensive. Glycerin is a safe additive commonly found in food, drugs and household products. In toothpaste, glycerin is used as a thickening agent.

Chinese regulators said Thursday that their investigation of toothpaste manufacturers there had found they had done nothing wrong. Chinese officials also said that while small amounts diethylene glycol can be safely used in toothpaste, new controls would be imposed on the use of the chemical in toothpaste.

The FDA said diethylene glycol in any amount was not suitable for use in toothpaste.

In a statement Friday, federal health officials called diethylene-glycol poisoning "an important public safety issue."

The Panamanian government last year inadvertently mixed the poison made in China into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine, killing at least 100 people, prosecutors there said. In that case, Chinese regulators acknowledged on Thursday that two companies in China had "engaged in some misconduct" in the way they labeled and sold the diethylene glycol, but they said a Panamanian importer bore most of the blame.

Last month, after publicity over the poisoning deaths from the cold medicine, a consumer in Panama noticed that toothpaste in a store listed diethylene glycol as an ingredient and notified the authorities. Eventually it was traced to China, and since then countries around the world have been on the lookout for the product.

Tainted toothpaste also has been found in Australia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua.