FDA Will Open Offices in China
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will open an office in China before the end of the year, according to a statement released by the federal government last week.
The FDA’s first office will open in Beijing and subsequent outposts are planned for Shanghai and Guangzhou, the Associated Press reports. A total of eight staffers are expected to man the three offices.
In addition to China, food and drug regulators are expected to be placed in India, Latin America and the Middle East.
The announcement comes after the safety of imported food and drugs has come under fire. There have been at least 149 deaths in the U.S. of people who had allergic reactions after receiving contaminated doses of the Chinese-made blood thinner heparin.
Heparin, derived from pig intestines, is typically injected into patients to reduce the risk of blood clots in catheters or during kidney dialysis and cardiac surgery.
Baxter International, one of the largest producers of heparin in the U.S., announced the voluntary recall of nine lots of heparin on Jan. 17, 2008, after reports of allergic-type reactions in patients given the drug. A month later, the FDA released a statement indicating that some patients who received heparin injections suffered symptoms, sometimes fatal, ranging from nausea and diarrhea to shortness of breath, dangerously low blood pressure and allergic or hypersensitivity reaction.
Investigators with the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control subsequently announced that the drug had been contaminated with a chemically altered form of chondroitin sulfate at Chinese manufacturing facilities hired by Baxter.
If you have a loved one who has been injured or died after receiving heparin, contact Carey & Danis. We can help. Carey & Danis is a national law firm that represents personal injury victims and their families.
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