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19:35, 26-Jul-2018
Opinion: Public anger at vaccine scandal as authorities investigate
Updated
19:28, 29-Jul-2018
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By CGTN's Dialogue
China's Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) has launched an investigation into Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology after the vaccine manufacturer was found to have falsified production data for its rabies vaccine.
Its license for the vaccines has been revoked and the company has recalled all unused vaccines.
“It has to be the government," said He Jing, an attorney from ANJIE law firm and a guest on CGTN’s Dialogue, when he was asked about how similar incidents could be prevented in the future. "For this scandal, the vaccine issue is likely to be the quality issue," he explains.
00:59
“If no people actually consistently make regular checks of the quality, it is hard to detect this kind of problem."
As for public anger surrounding the scandal, He said, “There are two reasons, the first one is today for Chinese people, the priority is getting healthy. After people get more income, people naturally care more about the safety of their children and their health issues.
“The second reason is that people are shocked. For the last couple of years, there were not many scandals about food safety or drug safety. Therefore, the public think that the issues were well controlled.
“However, when the children vaccine scandal came out, people (were) so shocked that the issues are still there, and really affect our children. That's the reason people really reacted.”
00:56
Adding to that, Harvey Dzodin, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization cited the pivotal role of public supervision and identified the possibility of whistle-blower protection for employees who want to report wrongdoing.
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“The system needs to find a way to encourage people to come clean. In our country (US), one of the ways we do this is through whistle-blowers," he said.
“People are inside who are in the position to report this kind of things, and sometimes we reward it. We need more legal protection for those people."
The investigation into Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology is underway and CGTN will keep a close eye on developments.