Heparin Stopped at the Border
On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it is taking action against shipments of heparin coming into the country from China after an influx of reports describing allergic reactions, including four fatalities, which may be linked to contaminated product. All shipments reaching the US border will now be tested for contamination before further distribution.
Heparin, a popular blood-thinning prescription medication, has been linked to more than 700 allergic reactions in the US since January 1, 2007. It is believed to be associated with 19 deaths, however FDA spokesperson Janet Woodcock says there have been no new deaths reported since February 28.
The current heparin import alert focuses on heparin produced by Baxter International Inc., of Wisconsin. Baxter gets its active ingredient from Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC (SPL), headquartered in Waunakee, Wisconsin. SPL, which maintains plants in China and Wisconsin, claims it is too soon to tell if the contaminated products come from its Chinese facility.
FDA officials announced last week that they discovered a significant amount of a suspicious substance, thought to be a contaminant, in samples of some recalled heparin and in the active ingredient used to manufacture it. The substance is said to be “heparin-like” but it has yet to be identified exactly. Baxter issued a recall of most of its heparin products last month after receiving reports of adverse allergic reactions.
A heparin manufacturer in Germany issued reports of contaminated heparin last week and ordered a recall of all its products. Rotexmedica GmbH also purchases heparin ingredients from China but not from SPL. Samples of the products Rotexmedica receives from its Chinese supplier, Yantai Dongcheng Biochemicals, is being compared to the heparin recalled by Baxter.
Source: CNN
- Will the recent news about the poor quality of products manufactured in China, have any effect on how you buy your medications?
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I generally try not to buy anything Chinese because of the extremely poor quality. No matter what it is - clothes, electronics, you name it. Although it is becoming more difficult these days to find products not manufactured in China.
Made in China = crap!
Check out the CPSC.gov recall page and see how many recalled products are made in China. Unfortunately, stores like Walmart sell almost entirely Chinese goods. Its not possible to buy something at a dollar store not made in China.
Where are all the congress members who support drug importation? Quiet out there. You get what you pay for.
Wow. They do all this because of 19 deaths of adults from this drug yet they continue to pump vaccines into our kids, which injure 800K nationwide each year.
vaccines. haha! you conspiracy theorists amuse me.
Steve, regarding your comment about vaccines..Now the government wants you to give Hepatitis B shots to babies! That makes a lot of sense when the shot is for sexually transmitted diseases. And the new Gardisil vaccine? It is making a lot of girls very ill and around 11 have died. Doesn’t anyone get the fact that if the government won’t give the customers to the vaccine makers for profit, the manufacturers threaten not manufacture it at all. It is a scary fact. The bottom line is get the vaccines for diseases that are WELL TESTED AND NECESSARY and skip the other ones.
I just don’t get it. How much money do these companies save by purchasing animal based drugs from China? Don’t we have enough pigs in America slaughtered and regulated by government agencies? We don’t have a perfect system but still, it beats rural mom & pop animal chop shops in China where hygiene is the last thing on people’s minds.
WE ALL know that China “knocks off” everything from Prada handbags & Rolex watches to CDs & DVDs. They are truly masters of illusion when it comes to products. They even go so far as to knock off UL labels and put them on faulty extension cords used extensively during Christmas.
Manufacturing companies in communist China are under tight & complete government approval, from financing & land sales to “ownership” selection. So ultimately it seems the government has no qualms about pirating, polluting or tainting any product so long as it makes money. I can understand importing the cheap products we love to buy at Wal-Mart but I am shocked by how many products that are ingested into the human body originate from China. Even sucking candy!
Personally I would NEVER intentionally ingest any of these products and I think until China cleans up it’s act, America should ban them from being sold here. The Europeans and Americans have established standards that will take generations for China to achieve. Their first step has to be GENUINE desire and that, again, is the furthest thing fro their minds.