Vaccine Scandal: Pharmaceutical company found guilty of faking production data
Updated 21:23, 26-Jul-2018
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02:17
Our reporter Xu Xinchen visited the drug maker's factory and filed this report from Changchun, where the facility is based.
XU XINCHEN CHANGCHUN, JILIN PROVINCE "China's second-largest rabies vaccine maker, Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences is the manufacturer held accountable by the China Food and Drug Administration for forging production data and breaking quality management protocols. And now, the company's production license — the Good Manufacturing Practice or GMP certificate, has been revoked. The vaccine maker has not yet responded to our interview request, but it has issued a written public apology and stated the faulty products were discovered before they left the warehouse, and they were then sealed and controlled. However, that did not put people at ease."
"These people are only chasing after profits and they are bad. They are putting children at risk. These people are unbelievable."
"This is not like fake milk power or some other fake medicine. People don't get vaccinated often -- maybe once or twice in a lifetime. Especially for children, if they miss the best opportunity to be vaccinated -- it is unthinkable how much damage they could be put through."
XU XINCHEN CHANGCHUN, JILIN PROVINCE "Since Changchun Changsheng got its GMP certificate in 2012 and started producing rabies vaccines, the firm successfully reduced its production costs and raised its profit margin four times to over 80%. Changchun Changsheng was also recently fined over 3 million yuan or some half a million US dollars for a batch of DTaP vaccine that found failed to conform to biological potency standards last year. And Changchun Changsheng's parent company — Shenzhen listed- Changsheng Biotechnology has been criticized due to its failure to disclose last year's incident to the public, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange also started its investigation into the drug maker. The DTaP vaccines aim to immunize children against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus. Over a quarter of a million vaccines in the batch were reported to be sold to disease control centers across East China's Shandong Province. Medical experts say the vaccines may not cause health issues but may not protect children from these diseases properly either."