Fake medicine kills woman: Four held

By Jane Chen | June 3, 2009, Wednesday |

Online Edition

POLICE have arrested four people in east China's Zhejiang Province for selling a fake medicine that killed an elderly woman in the province's Zhuji City.

Police and the local health authority are continuing their investigations, today's Oriental Morning Post reported.

Zhuji resident Fu Shuying, 80, died 10 minutes after being injected what should have been human serum albumin on May 5.

She had been using albumin, the most abundant protein in human blood plasma, because it had proved effective in treating her arthritis.

Fu visited the Zhuji Traditional Medicine Hospital on May 4 after she suffered an acute attack of arthritis. Hospital workers told her that the medicine was in short supply but could be obtained from a man surnamed Cai who worked in the hospital pharmacy.

The next day, her daughter, He Aifeng, contacted Cai and bought one bottle of the "medicine" for 520 yuan (US$76.13) outside the hospital. The official price is 380 yuan.

Fu then had a community doctor inject her with the "medicine." Ten minutes after the injection, she died after complaining of a severe headache and suffering spasms.

Fu's family met Cai on May 8. In a video, which the family recorded, Cai admitted he had bought the drug illegally and that he could not tell if it was fake or not.

Fu's family managed to obtain another bottle of the drug from Cai and handed it over to Zhuji's drug authority.

Tests confirmed the "medicine" was extremely dangerous. Its alleged producer according to the label, a Shanghai company, does not exist.

Police arrested Cai on May 13 and detained four other people.

Cai confessed he had sold 10 bottles of the drug.

Cai had bought the drug for 460 yuan from a person surnamed Chen, who had bought it for 410 yuan from someone surnamed Hong. Hong had paid 370 yuan for the drug.

The hospital denied it had anything to do with the tragedy.

"Though Cai is on our staff, he sold the drug on his own," said the principal, He Miao. "The injection was not performed in our hospital," He added.

Nation

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Fake medicine kills woman: Four held

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