Shanxi vows to investigate killer vaccines
- Source: Global Times
- [02:04 March 23 2010]
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By Song Shengxia
In what appears to be a response to public outrage over an alleged vaccine scandal involving four deaths and dozens of cases of illnesses, Shanxi provincial authorities assured the public Monday that experts had been sent to inspect 15 children who were reportedly victims of tainted vaccines.
The response has been seen as a positive turn from the provincial health bureau, which affirmed last week that related media reports were "basically untrue."
Speaking at Monday's press conference, Ju Xianhua, deputy secretary general of the Shanxi government, assured local residents that vaccines in the province are being "strictly monitored and their quality is guaranteed."
He said that, following the latest media reports, the local government had sent experts to check on all 15 children named in the news stories, and would announce later whether their illnesses were connected to the vaccinces.
Shanxi authorities and the Ministry of Health sent experts to investigate the case in 2007 and 2008, without finding any problem with the vaccines, he added.
The vaccination scandal came to light after a report by the China Economic Times on Wednesday said that four children had died and at least 74 others became sick in Shanxi after receiving vaccines for encephalitis, hepatitis B and rabies between 2006 and 2008.
The report said that since 2006 the local health bureau had been selling problematic vaccines that were exposed to summer heat rather than stored in refrigerators as required.
The Shanxi Health Bureau denied the accusations Wednesday, adding that it had checked with 10 children said to be victims and found that one of them had an adverse reaction and died as a result of a vaccination.
The report was "basically untrue," Li Shukai, the local deputy health director, told the Xinhua News Agency.
The China Economic Times, however, stood by its report, issuing a statement two days later saying it had sufficient evidence to back up the claims.
Chen Tao'an, a former information office official with the Shanxi Province Disease Prevention and Control Center, the whistleblower who helped the newspaper with its six-month inquiry and interviews with the families of 36 victims, said he saw boxes and boxes of vaccines piled up in a hot room without air conditioning.
Chen told the Global Times that he was removed from his post and redirected to do cleaning in early 2009.
The Beijing-based Huawei Biomedical company, which owned the exclusive rights for supplying vaccines and distributing them at the center, was later deemed ineligible to conduct vaccine-related business.
The Shanxi government revealed Monday that Huawei has been under investigation for allegedly providing 220,000 yuan for the disease center director, Li Wenyuan, to buy a car.
Meanwhile, a panel consisting of eight experts from China's Ministry of Health (MOH) arrived in Shanxi over the weekend to oversee the investigation of the case.
