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Twists in Chain of Supplies for Blood Drug
Related to country: China
About the book: "Principles of Plant Breeding, 2nd Edition"

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

By DAVID BARBOZA and WALT BOGDANICH
Published: February 28, 2008
New York Times
RUGAO, China — With reports of more than 400 patients in the United States suffering serious complications after receiving the blood-thinner heparin, American investigators are trying to determine whether the raw material for the drug, made from pig intestines, became contaminated on the journey that begins in the slaughterhouses of China.
The investigators are examining the records of a factory an hour from here that supplies much of the active ingredient in heparin for Baxter International, which earlier this month halted sales of multidose vials of heparin after reports of injuries and four deaths.
The owner of the factory, which is known as Changzhou SPL, says its supply chain is safe. It buys raw material from only two reputable wholesalers, it says, and audits their 10 to 12 suppliers.
“We have a collection chain in place, and we stick with that,” said David Strunce, the president of Scientific Protein Laboratories, an American company that owns a majority of Changzhou SPL. He declined repeated requests from The New York Times to identify those smaller suppliers, saying it was proprietary information.
But interviews with dozens of heparin producers and traders in several Chinese provinces, as well as a visit to a village near here dominated by tiny family workshops that process crude heparin from pig intestines, show the difficulties confronting investigators as they seek to trace the supply chain. The picture that emerges is of a chain more complex, and less orderly, than the one Mr. Strunce laid out.
The Chinese heparin market has become increasingly unsettled over the last year, as pig disease has swept through the country, depleting stocks, leading some farmers to sell sick pigs into the market and forcing heparin producers to scramble for new sources of raw material. Traders and industry experts say even big companies have been turning more often to the small village workshops, which are unregulated and often unsanitary.
One of the wholesalers named by Scientific Protein Laboratories, Ruihua Biochemical in Hangzhou, said it provided a mix of crude heparin that it manufactured and some that it bought “from small factories nearby in several villages.” The owner, Hua Ruihua, said he never inspected the small factories. “We are not the government,” he said in a telephone interview. “We have no right to inspect their pigs or intestines or facilities.”
The owner of one of those workshops, Fan Yinan, said, “I sold to Ruihua several times before, but since last September I have had no intestines.” He confirmed that “no one from Ruihua inspected my pigs or intestines.”
Asked about Ruihua Biochemical, the S.P.L. chief, Mr. Strunce, said, “We have no information to suggest that your information is true.”
This week, a spokeswoman for Baxter said the number of reports of adverse reactions to heparin had surpassed 400. A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration in the United States said the agency was reviewing the new reports and did not yet have a revised count.
The authorities have not determined that problems with the heparin supply chain led to the deaths and adverse reactions, first reported last month in Missouri. Nor have investigators determined that heparin from China was the culprit. Baxter also gets some of its ingredients from a plant in Wisconsin. Neither S.P.L. nor Baxter has been accused of doing anything wrong.
Even so, the problems involving heparin have again focused attention on the quality of products from China and the gaps in regulation by both the Chinese and United States governments. S.P.L.’s plant in Changzhou was certified by American officials to export to the United States even though neither government had inspected it. The plant has been exporting heparin to Baxter since 2004.
Like many chemical companies in China that make pharmaceutical ingredients for export, S.P.L. fell into a regulatory void. A spokesman for China’s State Food and Drug Administration, Shen Chen, said his agency had not inspected the S.P.L. factory because “as far as we know, it is not a drug manufacturer; it is a producer of chemical ingredients.” Mr. Shen said his agency was helping American investigators as part of a recent agreement with American regulators.




February 28, 2008 | 6:25 AM Comments  0 comments

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT!
About the book: "Think Big"

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big notice on
the door on which was written:
"Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company
passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been
prepared in the gym".
**
In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues,
but after a while they started getting curious to know who it was who
hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself.

The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were ordered to
control the crowd within the room.
The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up.
Everyone thought: "Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at
least he's now dead!".

One by one, the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they
looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood near the
coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part
of their soul.

There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it and saw
him/herself.
There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:
"There is only one person who is capable of setting limits to your growth:
it is YOU. You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are
the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your
success. You are the only person who can help yourself. Your life does not
change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents
change, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life
changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you
realize that YOU are the only one responsible for your life.

"The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with
yourself"

Examine yourself, watch yourself. Don't be afraid of difficulties,
impossibilities and losses: be a winner, build yourself and your reality.

The world is like a mirror: it gives back to anyone the reflection of the
thoughts in which one has strongly believed.
The world and your reality are like mirrors laying in a coffin, which show
to any individual the death of his divine capability to imagine and create
his happiness and his success.

It's the way you face Life that makes the difference.

IF AT ALL WE NEED SOME CHANGE WE GOT TO START FORM WITHIN OURSELVES!!!


February 26, 2008 | 6:22 AM Comments  0 comments

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Journalist Arrested and Detained in Sierra Leone
Related to country: Sierra Leone

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Press Release

Society for Democratic Initiatives, Sierra Leone (SDI-SL) states its total opposition to the recent criminal action taken against Mr Jonathan Leigh, Editor of the Independent Observer, by Transport and Aviation Minister, Kemoh Sesay. Mr Leigh was arrested following an article stating that the Minister had built two large mansions in the immediate period after being elected into office.

SDI-SL has repeatedly raised its concern regarding the ongoing application of the Criminal and Seditious Libel provisions of the 1965 Public Order Act. These provisions are archaic and essentially used, by government, as a tool to silence journalists and create fear within the media. It was an instrument widely used by the previous administration in notable cases such as that of Paul Kamara, Editor of For di People Newspaper. President Koroma had, in his first month, given assurance that this new government would respect and protect freedom of the press – a fact called into question by this recent development. Democracy itself is dependent on an open society, a society marked by freedom of speech. The media have a decisive role to play in such a society, as a watchdog of government. Any attempts to muzzle them must be viewed as an attack on democracy itself. Criminal defamation laws, false publication laws & seditious libel laws (‘insult laws’) have been used to suppress criticism of official wrongdoing and corruption, and to stave off public scrutiny.
Such laws undermine the right to freedom of expression which is protected by the Constitution of Sierra Leone and under international law.

Ideally, the legitimate aim of defamation law should be to protect the reputation of an individual or identifiable entity, which has a right to sue and be sued, against injury such as publication which tends to lower his/her esteem or exposes him/her to public ridicule or hatred. Mr Leigh had indeed already printed a retraction on the article concerned. Sufficient options for redress exist within civil law and therefore SDI-SL finds the minister’s resort to the criminal law as unacceptable in a democratic society.

In addition, because the act is criminal under the Public Order Act, such actions are brought on behalf of government officials by the public prosecution’s office. The protection of one’s reputation is essentially a private matter. The State, including the police and public prosecutors ought not to take part in the initiation or prosecution of criminal defamation cases, regardless of the status of the person affected. Using State resources to protect the reputations of public officials amounts to an abuse of public resources, resources which would be better allocated to other aspects of the justice system in Sierra Leone.

A further concern is in regards to the refusal to grant bail, at the first instance, by the Justice of the Peace presiding over the matter. Whilst Mr Leigh was able to secure bail by application to the High Court it was set at an excessively high amount of Le 200 million. The court does indeed hold discretion to grant bail or not. However with such discretion comes responsibility, a responsibility to exercise that discretion on reasonable and logical grounds. SDI-SL is concerned that the decision made in the Jonathan Leigh case was neither logical nor reasonable and disproportionate to the aim of redress the defamations are suppose to pursue.

SDI-SL would like to draw attention to the constitutional protection given to freedom of expression under Article 25, Chapter III of the 1991 Constitution. Such a constitutional protection clearly calls into question the validity of provisions of the 1965 Act. This freedom is also protected in a plethora of international treaties, treaties to which Sierra Leone is a signatory: the Universal Declaration on Human Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Africa Charter on Human Right and Peoples Rights and Johannesburg Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Information.

SDI strongly opposes the usage of defamation laws when they seek to prevent legitimate criticism of public officials or the exposure of official wrongdoing or corruption. Defamation laws should reflect the importance of open debate about matters of public concern and the principle that public figures are required to accept a greater degree of criticism than private citizens; in particular, laws which provide special protection for public figures, such as desacato laws, should be repealed

Therefore SDI would like to call on all civil society and media institutions to join with us in advocating for the repeal of this archaic and restrictive Act.

February 20, 2008 | 5:38 AM Comments  2 comments

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