Supervision of herbal medicine needed

The State Food and Drug Administration said on Sept 8 that some herbal medicine produced in Anhui province is fake.

Twelve companies are under investigation, and eight were ordered to suspend production.

The small pieces of fake Chinese herbal medicine, which are supposed to be made of expensive ingredients, are profitable for the pharmaceutical companies. The fake products are made from potatoes, sweet potatoes and starch. The producers also use chemicals to make them heavier and enlarge their profits.

The administration issued about 1,032 Good Manufacturing Practice certificates to companies by 2011. According to the administration, six of the companies suspected of producing fake medicine are certificate holders.

It's reasonable to assume that the herbal medicine industry is being affected by problems similar to the ones plaguing China's dairy industry.

Adulteration practices start at the individual raw material providers. Then, the quality control process at the company level fails. The slack and inefficient supervision system makes the companies fearless in trying all possible ways to reduce costs and increase profits, while ignoring the health and rights of consumers.

The dairy industry scandals prove that authorities must enforce strict supervision and accountability systems to prevent companies from committing similar mistakes and make all relevant watchdog departments be vigilant and actively respond to all misbehavior in the herbal medicine industry.

If not, after consumers lose their trust in herbal medicine, the losses for companies will be much greater than the illegal profits they obtained.