There are many things that scared me this Halloween: chilling warnings of unwrapped candy, the neighborhood children walking to school in their less-than-appropriate-for-the-fourth-grade costumes ( a brother and sister dressed as Britney Spears and Kevin Federline for example), and my lack of self-control involving chocolate candy bars. But one story in particular was creepy in its own right...
The New York Times recently reported that many unregulated Chinese chemical companies have been able to get their drug ingredients on the international market, and eventually into the hands of Americans, via trade shows.
Several Chinese companies, such as Honor International Pharmtech, accused of shipping counterfeit drugs into the U.S. in January, and Orient Pacific International, a chemical company whose owner resides in a Houston jail on charges of selling counterfeit medicine, were in attendance at the world's biggest pharmaceutical ingredients trade show in Milan.
"While these companies hardly represent all of the nearly 500 Chinese exhibitors, more than from any other country, they do point to a deeper problem: Pharmaceutical ingredients exported from China are often made by chemical companies that are neither certified nor inspected by Chinese drug regulators, The New York Times has found.
Because the chemical companies are not required to meet even minimal drug-manufacturing standards, there is little to stop them from exporting unapproved, adulterated or counterfeit ingredients."
That tops my scary list for this Halloween...
For the full investigative report click here.
MV
