by Phyllis Schlafly
Your prescription drugs may be coming from Communist China. Drug research in China has fallen under a cloud since 2006 because 13 of the top 20 global drug makers have set up research and development centers in China. Yes, it’s cheaper to do research there but, as one auditor said, “with cheaper research comes greater risk.”
Researchers did not report the results of animal studies about a drug already being tested in humans, a breach described by drug researchers as a “mortal sin.” Auditors also reported that Chinese workers did not properly monitor clinical trials and they paid hospitals in ways that could be seen as bribery.
China’s purchase of pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. for $4.7 billion has U.S. officials concerned about how this could affect the safety and availability of heparin. That’s an important blood thinner derived from pig intestines that is widely used in U.S. heart surgery and kidney dialysis.
This would be the biggest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company. Smithfield is the world’s largest pork producer, with 46,000 employees in 25 states, and is a major supplier of crude heparin, which is already stressed and could soon be in short supply.
In 2007 and 2008, nearly 150 people suffered serious reactions and 94 people died after being treated with contaminated heparin.
U.S. inspections in China are not what we are used to in the United States. For example, U.S. inspectors came and went from a Walmart-certified factory in Guangdong Province in China this fall, approving its production of specialty items that are on U.S. shelves for Christmas sales. Unknown to the inspectors, none of the kiddie items, such as reindeer suits, were manufactured at the factory being inspected, but had been outsourced to a never-inspected cheaper rogue factory.
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