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If one wears a fake branded shirt, it is the producer of the real brand that suffers infringement of its rights. But when a patient has been injected with a counterfeit injection, the consequence could be disastrous and even fatal.

This kind of disaster has befallen some patients who were injected with a kind of fake injection produced by Qiqihar No 2 Pharmaceutical Company. The injections have resulted in kidney failure.

The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has issued an emergency notice to ban the sale of all medicines produced by this company throughout the country and a special team has been sent down to northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, where the firm is located, to conduct an investigation.

Preliminary investigations indicate that there are loopholes in the production process of the problematic injections and a kind of raw material might be the culprit.

Pharmacies and hospitals all over the country have been mobilized to search through their warehouses for medicines produced by this firm. It has been reported that all the drugs found have been sealed.

But do we have enough reason to heave a sigh of relief? It seems not at least until we know how the firm got certification from the SFDA, how its production process slipped past the supervision of the local food and drug administration, and how its fake medicines managed to get through various checkpoints supposed to guarantee unsafe drugs don't end up on pharmacy shelves.

We would hesitate to swallow tablets that doctors have prescribed for us because we cannot make sure other pharmaceutical firms are producing the right medicines without loopholes in their production processes.

The firm involved is said to have been a medium-sized state-owned enterprise that was shifted into the hands of a private entrepreneur in 2005. But it was reported that problems existed before the firm changed hands.

Were there any under-the-table dealings behind the acquisition of the firm? If there were, do they have anything to do with the production of the fake medicine? Is there any corruption involved in the case? Is this just a single case or the tip of the iceberg of irregularities in the entire process of the approval, production and sale of medicine?

A thorough investigation needs to be carried out to answer all of these questions. The arrest of several officials in the SFDA early this year has already hurt the reputation of the watchdog.

If a clear picture could be provided for this case, the culprits duly penalized and effective measures worked out to tighten controls on the sale and production of medicine, the SFDA could re-establish its reputation.

We sincerely hope that the case can be handled in such a manner that we can put out of our minds the suspicion that the medicines supposed to save our lives might turn out to destroy our health.

(China Daily May 15, 2006)