Via The Guardian: 'They are devils': China's parents demand answers over vaccine scandal. Excerpt:
On Sunday, Mo Li, 27, was browsing Weibo when she saw the news: 250,000 defective vaccines had been administered to children in the province where she and her husband are raising their only child.
“It was like an explosion in my head,” says Mo, who lives in the eastern port city of Weihai, in Shandong province. “My only thought was, ‘please not my son, please not my son’,” she said, describing her thoughts while searching for her 17-month-old’s health records.
The serial number on his vaccination record matched that of the batch in question, made by one of China’s largest vaccine makers, Changsheng Biotechnology. Mo looked at her son, Congcong, asleep, and felt awful and then angry.
“I thought about all the people involved, from the vaccine company to the regulators. They cannot be called human. They are devils in hell,” she said.
Like Mo, thousands of parents across China have been scrambling for answers this week after revelations their children may have received faulty immunisations under a state-sponsored vaccine program, using products from Changsheng. The incident has sparked one of the country’s largest public outcries in years, one that officials and censors have struggled to contain.
Changsheng, a private company based in Jilin province, is under multiple investigations for fabricating inspection records for a rabies vaccine as well as selling at least 250,000 substandard DPT vaccines – for diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus – to health clinics in Shandong. Fifteen people, including the chairwoman of the company, have been arrested on “suspicion of criminal offences” while China’s top graft investigation agency has said it will investigate.
Chinese president Xi Jinping, who rarely comments on such public cases, promised the government would “investigate to the end”. “It is necessary to promptly release the progress of the investigation and effectively respond to the concerns of the people,” he was quoted as saying, according to Chinese state media on Monday.
A recurring issue
There have been no reports of injuries from the defective vaccines and officials promised children would receive new vaccines. But public trust has hit a new low: people say they have heard this all before.
As China has expanded its immunisation program over the past decade, substandard vaccines have been a recurring issue. In 2016, $90m in vaccines were found to be stored improperly in Shandong province. The year before, hundreds of children in Henan province reportedly fell ill after being given out-of-date vaccines. In 2010, a newspaper in Shanxi province reported unrefrigerated vaccines had killed four children.
Many are recalling another public health crisis, in 2008, when tainted milk powder killed six infants and left 300,000 others ill. Officials initially tried to cover up the incident. In the case of Changsheng, inspectors discovered the substandard vaccines last year, but they were not pulled until this month.
