In mid-April 2012, Chinese media exposed the wide-scale use of recycled leather products and other harmful materials in the manufacture of gelatin capsules in the pharmaceutical industry. On April 19, 2012, Sun Zhongshi (孙忠实), an expert at China’s Ministry of Health said on the Strong Nation Forum at People’s Daily Online that people would not ingest too much chromium if they took pills three times a day, two pills each time. So, he said, Chinese should cool down over the poisonous capsules scandal, not assuming capsules were too harmful. At the Economic Observer, Xu Zhiyong, a lawyer and activist, asked: “Chinese, Why Aren’t You Angry?” Xu talked about how issues of consumer safety remained unresolved in China despite continued scandals like the poisonous milk scandal in 2008. In this cartoon, posted by Dayu Manhua (大雨漫画) to his blog at QQ.com, a disturbed Chinese patient uses a pair of chopsticks to pick up medicinal capsules shaped like missiles. The bottle in the foreground is labelled “CAPSULES.”.


David Bandurski

CMP Director

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