FDA official arrested as vaccine scandal widens
By Wang Xiang |
April 3, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AN official with China's Food and Drug Administration has been arrested for corruption amid the massive vaccine scandal in eastern China's Jiangsu Province.
Wei Liang, a senior official of the administration's Drug Registration Department, was charged with "taking bribes amounting to less than 1 million yuan (US$146,500)," according to an insider with prosecutors.
He told the 21st Century Business Herald that the money involved in Wei's case was "no big deal" but would not reveal more details "at such a sensitive time."
The nation's fourth-largest rabies vaccine maker, Jiangsu Ealong Biotech Co, is accused of selling defective vaccines to 27 provinces and affecting more than 1 million people in China.
The Drug Registration Department controls every pharmaceutical company in the country and was once known as a hotbed of corruption.
The former director of the department, Cao Wenzhuang, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2007, for taking 2.34 million yuan in bribes from firms.
Wei inspected Ealong Biotech last July and came under the microscope last December, the same time the FDA announced that the company had produced defective rabies vaccines.
Four months after the FDA stepped into the investigation of Ealong Biotech, no details have been released. It said yesterday that officials were still under investigation.
The FDA went through a personnel reshuffle after Wei was arrested and 16 departmental officials were sacked for undisclosed reasons.
Administration spokeswoman Yan Jiangying refused to comment on the perceived link between the personnel adjustment and the vaccine scandal.
The FDA said yesterday the country would step up monitoring of substandard rabies vaccines that had been recalled but may still be on the market.
Although the vaccine was recalled and production shut late last year, doses may still be out there. The administration also said it was watching for any reactions in people who took the vaccine last year.
More than 200,000 units of the rabies vaccines manufactured by Ealong Biotech and Hebei Bioforwell were recalled because they did not meet national quality standards, the administration said on its Website.
It did not say what was wrong with the vaccine, or what symptoms people may have who took it.
Former reports said Ealong Biotech had mixed an additive with the vaccine to reduce costs.
Liu Wu, general manager of Ealong Biotech, said while the defective vaccines might not provide protection against rabies, they would cause no illness to inoculated patients.
Wei Liang, a senior official of the administration's Drug Registration Department, was charged with "taking bribes amounting to less than 1 million yuan (US$146,500)," according to an insider with prosecutors.
He told the 21st Century Business Herald that the money involved in Wei's case was "no big deal" but would not reveal more details "at such a sensitive time."
The nation's fourth-largest rabies vaccine maker, Jiangsu Ealong Biotech Co, is accused of selling defective vaccines to 27 provinces and affecting more than 1 million people in China.
The Drug Registration Department controls every pharmaceutical company in the country and was once known as a hotbed of corruption.
The former director of the department, Cao Wenzhuang, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2007, for taking 2.34 million yuan in bribes from firms.
Wei inspected Ealong Biotech last July and came under the microscope last December, the same time the FDA announced that the company had produced defective rabies vaccines.
Four months after the FDA stepped into the investigation of Ealong Biotech, no details have been released. It said yesterday that officials were still under investigation.
The FDA went through a personnel reshuffle after Wei was arrested and 16 departmental officials were sacked for undisclosed reasons.
Administration spokeswoman Yan Jiangying refused to comment on the perceived link between the personnel adjustment and the vaccine scandal.
The FDA said yesterday the country would step up monitoring of substandard rabies vaccines that had been recalled but may still be on the market.
Although the vaccine was recalled and production shut late last year, doses may still be out there. The administration also said it was watching for any reactions in people who took the vaccine last year.
More than 200,000 units of the rabies vaccines manufactured by Ealong Biotech and Hebei Bioforwell were recalled because they did not meet national quality standards, the administration said on its Website.
It did not say what was wrong with the vaccine, or what symptoms people may have who took it.
Former reports said Ealong Biotech had mixed an additive with the vaccine to reduce costs.
Liu Wu, general manager of Ealong Biotech, said while the defective vaccines might not provide protection against rabies, they would cause no illness to inoculated patients.
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