From The Star
China drugmakers
associated press
BEIJING–China's food and drug watchdog announced it had shut down five drugmakers over the last year, including one that made a substance implicated in 11 deaths, state media reported Saturday.
The state Food and Drug Administration also stripped 128 drugmakers of their Good Manufacturing Practice certificates, a symbol of favourable performance, the China Daily newspaper reported on its website.
The report comes as China faces mounting international criticism over the quality and safety of its products from toys to toothpaste.
China's pharmaceutical industry is lucrative, but said to be poorly regulated. Some companies try to cash in by substituting fake or substandard ingredients.
Eleven people died this year after taking a drug made by the Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, one of the five companies shut down.
An investigation showed the drug contained a chemical that can cause kidney failure. The vendor had passed that chemical off as a normal ingredient.
The China Daily report said Guangdong Baiyi Pharmaceutical's licence was revoked for making a blood product from an infected donor, an incident that has not been widely reported.
The other three shuttered drugmakers were not named in the report.
It did, however, say that over the past six months, the administration has focused on boosting the number of inspectors and monitoring the production quality of narcotic drugmakers.
Worries about Chinese products began earlier this year, when the deaths of dogs and cats in North America were linked to pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine. Since then, U.S. authorities have also banned or turned away Chinese products including toxic fish, and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.
Several countries have also halted imports of Chinese-made toothpaste because it contained diethylene glycol, a low-cost and sometimes deadly substitute for glycerin.
China is currently overhauling its chaotic food and drug safety mechanisms.
There are signs it has responded through the courts as well. Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the food and drug watchdog, was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines.