Made in (The People's Republic of) China: November 2007 Archives
By Ben Blanchard and Jason Subler | REUTERS | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
November 26, 2007
The top EU trade official told China on Monday its reputation was at risk after a series of product safety scandals and that it must do more to tackle the problem.
The comments drew an icy response from a senior Chinese minister.
European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson also said Brussels was getting impatient with Beijing for failing to stamp out counterfeiting and might take the matter to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The hard line reflects growing EU frustration over the bloc's ballooning trade deficit with China and what many firms see as unfair restrictions on their access to China's booming market.
Those issues, along with dismay that China has let the yuan's exchange rate against the euro fall sharply this year, are set to dominate a regular China-EU summit in Beijing on Wednesday.
Mandelson told a meeting on food safety that a rash of recalls of toys, toothpaste and other consumer goods had shaken global trust in China's exports. Beijing had to clamp down on defective goods to restore buyers' confidence.
"While product safety is not a problem restricted to China, it will nevertheless be central to the global perception of China's growing weight as a manufacturer," he said. "China's long-term success depends on its reputation."
While labeling recent Chinese efforts to crack down a "positive first step," he said comments by some officials that 99 percent of China's products were safe was not good enough.
"Europe imports half a billion euros worth of goods from China every day -- so even 1 percent is not acceptable," he said.
PIRACY PROBLEMS
Mandelson also tied worries about safety to what he called the "tidal wave" of counterfeits made in China.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the trade in pirated consumer goods has reached $200 billion a year, equivalent to 2 percent of world trade, with many fakes coming from China.
"Some of those products -- fake medicines, fake car parts, fake aircraft parts -- carry huge risks," Mandelson said, demanding a "clearer demonstration" that Beijing was working to stamp out counterfeiters.
Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi was not amused.
"I am extremely dissatisfied," an angry-sounding Wu, known as China's "Iron Lady," told reporters after Mandelson spoke.
By AFP | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
November 08, 2007
US government authorities on Wednesday recalled 4.2 million units of a toy bead set manufactured in China after warning that it contains a substance that is toxic if ingested.
In addition, nearly 400,000 Chinese-made toys, most of them miniature cars, were recalled for containing unacceptable levels of lead paint in the latest mass recall over safety fears.
Two children slipped into comas after swallowing the Aqua Dot beads, which are manufactured in China and distributed by Spin Master in Toronto, Canada, the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned.
"The coating on the beads that causes the beads to stick to each other when water is added contains a chemical that can turn toxic when many are ingested," it said in a statement of the craft kits sold from April to November.
"Children who swallow the beads can become comatose, develop respiratory depression, or have seizures."
By Daily Press
November 8, 2007
Another recall for excessive lead was announced Wednesday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. This new recall covers more than 400,000 toys -- all manufactured in China. These products all violate the federal lead paint safety standard.
This article was reported by Walt Bogdanich, Jake Hooker and Andrew W. Lehren and written by Mr. Bogdanich | The New York Times
October 31, 2007
MILAN -- In January, Honor International Pharmtech was accused of shipping counterfeit drugs into the United States. Even so, the Chinese chemical company -- whose motto is "Thinking Much of Honor" -- was openly marketing its products in October to thousands of buyers here at the world's biggest trade show for pharmaceutical ingredients.
Other Chinese chemical companies made the journey to the annual show as well, including one manufacturer recently accused by American authorities of supplying steroids to illegal underground labs and another whose representative was arrested at the 2006 trade show for patent violations. Also attending were two exporters owned by China's government that had sold poison mislabeled as a drug ingredient, which killed nearly 200 people and injured countless others in Haiti and in Panama.
Yet another chemical company, Orient Pacific International, reserved an exhibition booth in Milan, but its owner, Kevin Xu, could not attend. He was in a Houston jail on charges of selling counterfeit medicine for schizophrenia, prostate cancer, blood clots and Alzheimer's disease, among other maladies.
While these companies hardly represent all of the nearly 500 Chinese exhibitors, more than from any other country, they do point to a deeper problem: Pharmaceutical ingredients exported from China are often made by chemical companies that are neither certified nor inspected by Chinese drug regulators, The New York Times has found.
Because the chemical companies are not required to meet even minimal drug-manufacturing standards, there is little to stop them from exporting unapproved, adulterated or counterfeit ingredients. The substandard formulations made from those ingredients often end up in pharmacies in developing countries and for sale on the Internet, where more Americans are turning for cheap medicine.
In Milan, The Times identified at least 82 Chinese chemical companies that said they made and exported pharmaceutical ingredients -- yet not one was certified by the State Food and Drug Administration in China, records show. Nonetheless, the companies were negotiating deals at the pharmaceutical show, where suppliers wooed customers with live music, wine and vibrating chairs.
One of them was the Wuxi Hexia Chemical Company. When The Times showed Yan Jiangying, a top Chinese drug regulator, a list of 186 products being advertised by the company, including active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished drugs, Ms. Yan said, "This is definitely against the law."
Yet in China, chemical manufacturers that sell drug ingredients fall into a regulatory hole. Pharmaceutical companies are regulated by the food and drug agency. Chemical companies that make products as varied as fertilizer and industrial solvents are overseen by other agencies. The problem arises when chemical companies cross over into drug ingredients. "We have never investigated a chemical company," said Ms. Yan, deputy director of policy and regulation at the State Food and Drug Administration. "We don't have jurisdiction."
China's health officials have known of this regulatory gap since at least the mid-1990s, when a chemical company sold a tainted ingredient that killed nearly 100 children in Haiti. But Chinese regulatory agencies have failed to cooperate to stop chemical companies from exporting drug products.
In 2006, at least 138 Panamanians died or were disabled after another Chinese chemical company sold the same poisonous ingredient, diethylene glycol, which was mixed into cold medicine.
China has an estimated 80,000 chemical companies, and the United States Food and Drug Administration does not know how many sell ingredients used in drugs consumed by Americans.
The Times examined thousands of companies selling products on major business-to-business Internet trading sites and found more than 1,300 chemical companies offering pharmaceutical ingredients. How many others sell drug ingredients but don't advertise this way on the Web is not known.
If the Milan show is any guide, most, if not all, are not certified by China's drug authorities.
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