The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has fired a dozen provincial and local officials and vowed to punish a pharmaceutical firm over a vaccine scandal that has inflamed public fears over the safety of domestically produced drugs.
The government has been struggling to shore up public confidence in the pharmaceutical sector following the revelation last month that a major Chinese manufacturer of rabies vaccines was found to have fabricated records and was ordered to cease production.
The government has said the suspect rabies vaccines did not enter the market, but the case provoked unusually strong outrage online from consumers fed up with recurring product safety scandals, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector.
The CEO of the company in question, Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology in northeastern Jilin Province, has been arrested, along with 14 other people, in connection with the scandal.
The first political casualties fell on Thursday as a dozen officials were removed from office, including Jilin deputy governor Jin Yuhui (金育輝), the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
Jin was in charge of monitoring the safety of food and pharmaceuticals.
The decision to dismiss him was made at a meeting of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, led by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
“Those who break the law and jeopardize public safety, notably in the matter of vaccines and medicines, should be severely punished,” Xinhua said, citing the meeting’s conclusions.
The committee also asked for the resignations of three other officials: The vice chairman of a provincial committee, the mayor of Jilin’s capital, Changchun, and the deputy head of the Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation.
Another eight provincial and city officials were removed from office by the regional leadership.
The former deputy chief of the now-defunct China Food and Drug Administration is to be investigated by the party’s anti-graft agency, Xinhua said.
Another 35 non-centrally administered officials “will be held accountable,” Xinhua said, without elaborating.
China is regularly hit by scandals involving sub-par or toxic food, drugs and other products, despite repeated promises by the government to address the problem.
Since the latest case came to light, authorities have announced a nationwide inspection of laboratories producing vaccines, but many Chinese parents have said that they no longer have confidence in the medicines administered to their children.
The Chinese State Council on Thursday held a meeting on the investigation into the latest case.
The company is to face a fine and all of its “illegal profits” would be confiscated, Xinhua said.
“In its reckless pursuit of profits, the company committed unlawful acts of grave nature,” Xinhua said in its report on the meeting.
The case exposed supervision failures by local governments and regulatory agencies, it said.
“We must conduct thorough safety checks on vaccine production ... and close all loopholes in the vaccine regulatory mechanism,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) was quoted by Xinhua as saying at a meeting of the State Council.
“Efforts should be made to build public confidence in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines made in China,” Li said.
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