China defends meds sold in LatAm

Back in 2006, at least 100 Panamanians died after being inadvertently poisoned by products from China such as toothpaste and medicine. Chinese officials blamed Panamanian manufacturers for altering the labels on products while China was accused of having weak safety regulations for items being exported. As recently as a year ago, Chinese suppliers were blamed for tainted doses of the blood thinner heparin which were then used in the U.S.

On Tuesday a senior member of China’s food and drug agency pointed fingers at the foreign media for sensationalism:

(…) Bian Zhenjia, deputy head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), said China was being unfairly blamed for the problem, especially by foreign media which claim the country is a major exporter of fake drugs.

"I do not agree with what the foreign media say. The Chinese government has always paid a lot of attention to cracking down on fake drugs," Bian told a news conference.

The problem was that sometimes overseas companies ignored Chinese regulations and did business with unregistered firms, he said.

"We hope that we can work hard together with the rest of the world and crack down on fake drugs, not hype up the problem and launch attacks," he said, adding some reports on fake drugs from China were simply false.

"If the international community can give us information on fake drugs, we will resolutely investigate. There is no ambiguity about this," Bian added.

In the situation involving Panama three years ago, both Chinese distributors and middlemen in Spain and Panama were to blame for the needles deaths of so many people. Bian’s remarks are irresponsible in pointing the finger at others while his country’s government has been asleep at the switch. It will take more than executing the former head of the SFDA to fix such a serious problem.

Image- New York Times (“Tianqi is one of three brands of Chinese toothpaste that were discovered (in 2007) to contain small amounts of a chemical found in antifreeze.”)
Online Sources- ConsumerAffairs.com, Reuters, AFP, New York Times, MSNBC