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BEIJING (Reuters) – A scandal over faulty vaccines in China has sparked anger on social media, underscoring the difficulties regulators face in rebuilding trust after years of food and drug safety scares.
The incident is a major blow for Beijing's efforts to push domestically made vaccines and for China's drug regulator, which has been struggling to clean up the world's second-biggest drug industry.
Worried parents trying to ascertain if their children had been faulty vaccines led to the topic of being the second most watched on the weekend on the Weibo social media site, with details widely shared on the WeChat messaging app.
"If the state does not protect its citizens, how can we love our country?" Asked one Weibo user, while another lamented, "Looking at the news, I do not dare to have an injection."
The scandal erupted a week ago, after major vaccine maker Changsheng Biotechnology.
The regulator ordered to halt production and recall all its vaccines, the company said in a statement.
On Thursday, however, it was reported that the authorities in Jilin Province were terminating it in a substandard production, uncovered in 2017, of a DPT vaccine to fight diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT).
The defective vaccine might not confer immunity but would not affect human safety, the provincial authorities had said in November, another implicated company, Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, in which DPT vaccines.
Reuters' calls to Changsheng headquarters on Sunday went unanswered.
The Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on Sunday evening that it was investigating that Changsheng fabricates production records and product inspection records, and arbitrarily changes process parameters and equipment, "serious violations" of the law.
It said that the agency was investigating the company and believed that it would be investigated and any violations would be dealt with seriously.
In a stock exchange statement on Sunday, the company said its suspension of rabies vaccine production would have a significant impact on its finances and that some regional disease control agencies had suspended some of its other vaccines.
The latest problems in Shandong province said they had uncovered the illegal sale of vaccines worth nearly $ 90 million.
Last week China's Zhejiang Huaihai Pharmaceutical said it was recalling a heart drug in the United States after the European Medicines Agency found it was tainted with an impurity linked to cancer.
The Changsheng scandal will hit a challenge in domestic vaccines by rekindling safety concerns for children, a challenge state media highlighted.
"Vaccines directly related to the health of children and related to life," the Global Times state-run said in a commentary. "[1] [10] [10] Changsheng's shares fell the maximum limit of 10 percent on Friday, to stand at 14.5 yuan ($ 2.14). They have lost 40 percent of their value since July 13.
($ 1 = 6.7659 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Reporting by Dominique Patton; Additional reporting by Zhou Jianfeng; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and David Goodman
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