What went wrong? Heparin probe highlights challenges of regulating global drugs market
CHANGZHOU, China (AP) - On a dusty lane in east China, a small factory sitting amid strawberry and vegetable fields processes chemicals from pig guts into heparin, a commonly used blood thinner linked to 62 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions in the U.S. and Germany. The mysterious problems with heparin from the factory and others like it _ China's deadliest product quality scandal since Chinese cough syrup killed 93 people in Central America a year ago _ dramatically illustrate the perils of shifting drug production offshore.11 April 2008