Fresh scandal erupts over vaccine safety in China

[Mista]

From what I read, the issue is really not as serious as some made it out to be. There is no reason to panic.

I think people are panicking because there are past vaccine scandals which led to blindness (the same manufacturer) and deaths in China. Some of them have already went to HK for vaccination even before this scandal because of previous scandals. So naturally the public will lose confidence and panic after another new but related scandal.

2016:

 

[JSCh]

There have been cases of fake vaccine that was found in some rural area of China. Those are company that sold vaccine through illegal channel. But not in this particular case, these vaccine is distribute through proper and legal channel.

Vaccines are not 100% safe. There are controversies nonstop around the world.

Vaccine injury - Wikipedia
Vaccine controversies - Wikipedia​

There are all sort of opinion around vaccine and if parent listen too much to those rumor, they may end up hurting the health of their child. It really doesn't help when there are many in China, even the so-called opinion leader, that are too prone to making sweeping generalization and haste to conclusion, making rash remark on the internet.

 

[Jlaw]

There have been cases of fake vaccine that was found in some rural area of China. Those are company that sold vaccine through illegal channel. But not in this particular case, these vaccine is distribute through proper and legal channel.

Vaccines are not 100% safe. There are controversies nonstop around the world.

Vaccine injury - Wikipedia
Vaccine controversies - Wikipedia​

There are all sort of opinion around vaccine and if parent listen too much to those rumor, they may end up hurting the health of their child. It really doesn't help when there are many in China, even the so-called opinion leader, that are too prone to making sweeping generalization and haste to conclusion, making rash remark on the internet.

This is PDF! Welcome to PDF!

 

[sweetgrape]

People should watch the documentary Vaxxed before getting their children vaccinated. It's a big scam either way.

It is big scandal, be exposed to public, public and government are raging, including me, some companies and official will be punished and thrown to jail, for the industry, maybe not a bad thing.

Equally important, if any PDF members have family members in China, this is very important information to share with them. Do not let government censorship or empty promises negatively impact their health. It would be even better if they can move out of the dystopian rogue regime called "China".

It is not related so-called government cersorship, hehe, you are just China hater, but you are nobody, enjoy your democracy and freedom, there are more than 1.4 billion Chinese stayed in China, whether are are good or not is not your business, mind your own business, if you want do something to help others, ask you government let more refugees in from the middle East, they need your help.

I think people are panicking because there are past vaccine scandals which led to blindness (the same manufacturer) and deaths in China. Some of them have already went to HK for vaccination even before this scandal because of previous scandals. So naturally the public will lose confidence and panic after another new but related scandal.

2016:

Of course, the confidence on domestic vaccine has been influenced, but in fact the worry from public always there, before the case, the related company has been punished for similar quality issue, but this time it be widely reported, the industry and related government agencies will be responsible for the case, never mind, it has been happened, but maybe not a bad thing completely.

 

[Mista]

There have been cases of fake vaccine that was found in some rural area of China. Those are company that sold vaccine through illegal channel. But not in this particular case, these vaccine is distribute through proper and legal channel.

Well, there are both legal and illegal scandals in the past. Public confidence will be hurt whether they are legal or illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-35859927

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/asia/china-investigates-vaccine-maker-after-infant-deaths.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia Pacific&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article

But I think this time round it's only insufficient dosage and the fabrication of production records. No reported related illness currently.

 

[JSCh]

NEWS | 30 JULY 2018
Chinese vaccine scandal unlikely to dent childhood immunization rates
Vaccines are mandated for children starting school in China and enjoy widespread public support.

Nicky Phillips

China has one of the world’s highest infant vaccination rates.Credit: VCG/Getty
​

Problems with two Chinese-made vaccines — one of which was distributed to clinics and possibly injected into hundreds of thousands of children — have led to arrests and made international headlines. But researchers who study vaccination in China don’t expect a major effect on the country’s high immunization rates.

Widespread support for immunization programmes combined with strict vaccine requirements for children starting school means that most parents will continue vaccinating their children, they say.

“I don’t think there’ll be an appreciable drop in vaccine coverage but it could impact when people get vaccines, and where the vaccines come from,” says Abram Wagner, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who has interviewed Chinese parents about their views on immunization.

Production problems
On 15 July, China’s national drug watchdog revealed that during a surprise inspection of vaccine maker Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology’s facilities in the northeastern province of Jilin, it found the company had faked production data for several batches of the rabies vaccine. Authorities ordered that the doses be disposed of and revoked the company’s manufacturing permit for that vaccine; it is not clear whether anyone received the faulty doses.

Five days later, local government investigators announced that the same company had violated standards in making about 250,000 doses of the DTP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough), rendering the doses potentially ineffective. For that breach, the company says it was fined 3.44 million yuan (US$505,000).

It is not known how many children received the faulty DTP vaccines, which were recalled when the problem was uncovered by authorities in November, but so far no health issues have been reported. The main concern is that these vaccines won’t protect children from the dangerous infections that they’re meant to combat, says Wagner.

Parents turned to social media to voice their anger at the company and their concerns about domestic vaccines. But Xiaomin Wang, a social scientist at Zhejiang University Institute for Social Medicine in Hangzhou, agrees that the scandal is unlikely to reduce child immunization rates.

In 2016, when Chinese authorities discovered that childhood vaccines rendered ineffective by improper storage had been distributed to medical clinics across the country over five years, Wang and her colleagues went out and asked parents about their views on vaccines. They found1 that parents had very low faith in the safety of domestically produced vaccines, which make up 95% of vaccines given in China — only 11% said they trusted them. But the researchers also found that more than half of parents surveyed still intended to rely on them to vaccinate their children.

The disparity between parents’ trust in domestic vaccines and their willingness to use them is probably influenced by several factors, including cost and availability, says one of Wang’s collaborators on the survey, Leesa Lin, who studies social behaviour and risk perception at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

Although the government subsidizes many domestic-made vaccines, those who have access to and can afford foreign-made vaccines are likely to seek them out, says Lin. “When an incident like this happens, the public might seek safer alternatives but would not give up on vaccination,” she says.

She attributes this, in part, to a widespread understanding of the benefits of vaccines, after decades of government campaigns promoting immunization. China has one of the world’s highest vaccination coverage rates — for example, 99% of Chinese infants receive the required three doses of the DTP vaccine, compared with 85% of infants globally, and 95% in the United States. Lin and the team are about to submit for publication results from another survey, which confirmed parents’ strongly-held faith in the benefits of vaccination programmes.

Those results stand in contrast to the attitudes of some small groups of parents in Europe and the United States who resist vaccinating their children, citing unfounded safety concerns or religious reasons, says Lin. “In China, those factors do not play much of a role.”

Lin and Wang plan to survey parents again in the coming months to improve understanding of the factors that influence their decisions.

Wagner notes that the DTP vaccine is mandatory for children starting school in China and credits such requirements with the country’s high vaccine uptake. Some parents might delay vaccination in the wake of the latest scare, but they are unlikely to risk their child being denied entrance to school, he says. He adds that it's particularly hard to get an exemption from such requirements in China compared with other countries that have similar rules.

Repair trust
Wagner hopes that Chinese officials will be more transparent about what happened at Changchun Changsheng than they were during the 2016 scandal and take stronger action to prevent another incident. At the time, the government promised to improve oversight of vaccine manufacturing and transportation, he says. “They talked big, but I’m not exactly sure what they did,” he says. “I hope that they’ll learn some lessons from this event and implement tighter regulations.”

There are already encouraging signs. Several Changchun Changsheng executives, including the chair, have been arrested, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that the events are shocking and has ordered an investigation of the vaccine production chain. “This is a step forward compared to last time,” says Lin.

China’s vaccine makers will also have to convince international markets that their vaccines are safe and effective if the country is to become a major global producer, says Wagner. “Vaccines and pharmaceutical products could be a huge industry for them.”

doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-05835-1



Chinese vaccine scandal unlikely to dent childhood immunization rates | Nature.com

 

[Jlaw]

People forgot the Vioxx scandal in which an American company's drug Vioxx killed 55,000 Americans directly from taking the drug and indirectly killed 500,000.
NO ONE FROM MERCK WENT TO JAIL.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/46535/when-half-million-americans-died-and-nobody-noticed

When half a million Americans died and nobody noticed

 

[JSCh]

Production problems
On 15 July, China’s national drug watchdog revealed that during a surprise inspection of vaccine maker Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology’s facilities in the northeastern province of Jilin, it found the company had faked production data for several batches of the rabies vaccine. Authorities ordered that the doses be disposed of and revoked the company’s manufacturing permit for that vaccine; it is not clear whether anyone received the faulty doses.

China fines company for illegal human rabies vaccine production
Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-16 20:55:14|Editor: Liangyu


BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Tuesday handed out penalties totaling more than 9.1 billion yuan (1.32 billion U.S. dollars) to a company for the illegal production of a human rabies vaccine.

The Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited violated China's laws and regulations on drug management and production supervision in producing a human rabies vaccine, according to administrative penalty decision made by national and local drug authorities.

Violations included blending different batches of vaccine fluid, falsifying dates of production and using expired fluid to produce some of the batches, the document said.

The National Medical Products Administration annulled the rabies vaccine approval document and the certificates for related products from the company and imposed a fine of 12.03 million yuan.

Jilin Food and Drug Administration revoked the company's pharmaceutical production license, confiscated the illegally-produced vaccines and total income of 1.89 billion yuan from defective vaccine sales and imposed a fine of 7.21 billion yuan.

The hefty fine of 7.21 billion yuan was three times the total value of the defective vaccines produced and sold by the company.

Individuals directly responsible for the violations in the case will be banned from carrying out drug manufacturing and operating activities, and those suspected of committing crimes will face criminal charges.

 

[haidian]

I know that some PDF members are reluctant to post this news due to fear of prosecution, prison time, or even more serious punishment in China, but this needs to get out. The Chinese government does not care one bit for its citizens and is willing to give slack to such companies in order to push for "domestic vaccines".

There needs to be a revolution, civil war, or foreign intervention to stop the oppression, totalitarianism, and egregious human rights violations by the worst regime in the history of mankind.

That is still the best joke of the year on my list, so hilarious..ROFL...

 

[JSCh]

Vaccine maker to be delisted from Shenzhen market
By Wang Junwei | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2018-12-11 15:59

Vaccine maker Changsheng Biotech Co received a mandatory delisting notification from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, according to the bourse's website on Tuesday.

Company executives including Gao Junfang, the board chairwoman, and three senior managers are banned from China's securities markets for life. Three other senior managers are banned from the market for five years for market violations, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission on the same day.

Changsheng Biotechnology, a major vaccine producer based in Changchun, Jilin province, was involved in a vaccine safety scandal in July when the State Drug Administration announced it found the company had engaged in falsifying production and inspection records in the making of vaccines.

China has introduced new measures to tighten its supervision of vaccine makers. On Nov 12, a draft vaccine management law was released by the State Administration for Market Regulation for public opinion. Companies that are fully aware of quality problems of vaccines but still selling them could face fines of up to 10 times the value of the products, the draft said.

 

[Mohrenn]

In the supposedly highly censured environnement that is China, health scandals and other important issues keep getting wide national level attention, while those same things would go under the radar in any other country at the same development stage, drowned under a mass of low quality frivolous news.

 

[JSCh]

48 officials punished over defective vaccine case
Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-03 00:03:43|Editor: yan

BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- A total of 48 officials of various levels have received punishment over the defective vaccine case involving Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited.

The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) made the announcement Saturday in a statement on investigations into the case.

Wu Zhen, former deputy head of the now defunct China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) and a former member of the agency's leading Party members' group, was expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and transferred to the procuratorate for investigation and prosecution for suspected duty crime.

Wu was among six high-ranking officials who were sacked or asked to resign as a result of the CCDI and NSC investigations.

A total of 42 lower level officials, who had worked with the CFDA, National Medical Products Administration, drug administration agencies of various levels in Jilin Province, Changchun municipal government and Changchun high-tech industries development area, were also punished.

Among the 42 were three duty crime suspects who formerly served with Jilin provincial medical products administration and were expelled from the CPC and transferred to procuratorial agencies for investigation and prosecution for suspected duty crimes.

 

[Jlaw]

No death penalty?