A 37-year-old man died of kidney failure after being treated with an antibiotic tainted with an antifreeze ingredient, the 14th fatality in China linked to the drug since 2006, state media and a hospital said yesterday.
The man, surnamed Ren, died on Wednesday at the No. 3 Zhongshan Hospital in Guangzhou, the hospital's Communist Party administration office said.
Ren was one of 65 patients at the hospital who received injections of the antibiotic, Armillarisni A, in April 2006, Xinhua news agency said.
By the end of last year, 13 patients had died from kidney failure, Xinhua said.
The antibiotic-linked deaths have drawn wide media attention and national outrage over the continued lack of enforcement of safety standards in China's food and drug manufacturing sectors. The country's pharmaceutical industry is highly lucrative, but spottily regulated, enticing some to try to cash in by substituting fake or substandard ingredients.
Following the 2006 deaths at the hospital, investigators found an unlicensed vendor had passed off a thickening agent used in antifreeze, diethylene glycol (DEG) -- also known as diglycol -- as a substitute for an ingredient in the antibiotic used to treat liver and gallbladder diseases.
Quality inspectors at the drug manufacturer, Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co, had failed to discover the problem. The government shut down the drug company in 2006 and ordered its products removed from shelves.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate