China has faced a series of health
scandals over the past decade among the
list of tainted goods were toothpaste
pet food fish toys milk powder blood
thinners cooking oil pork and most
recently vaccines where the authorities
used to downplay scandals and sweep them
under the rug this vaccine scare shows
just how much things have changed and
the reason why the Chinese have turned
to social media and the government is
responding parents are expressing their
anger on social media after drug
regulators found a health care company
produced 250,000 low-quality vaccines
for infants the shots which are
compulsory in China were supposed to
protect their kids from potentially
deadly de faria whooping cough and
tetanus it's fair to say that producing
low quality products happens in many
other countries too the difference is in
China due to the large population every
problem gets amplified data for rabies
vaccines were also found to have been
fabricated some parents even picketed
government offices and many flew to Hong
Kong for foreign-made shots the
government had no choice but to address
the public outcry
I think we are seeing a tipping point
now where social media is becoming more
influential than traditional news
outlets the government can't control
social media like they could with
traditional media's so they're having to
address the issues like never before in
a rare reaction to public outcry
President Xi Jinping personally called
the vaccine scandal shocking and vaccine
maker executives were detained within 48
hours of the initial clamor on social
media due to the rapid growth of users
on social media such as Veatch had an
increasing number of bloggers news and
views can spread more quickly
the government's response recently was
more timely than ever an investigation
in punishment was more effective critics
say that the health crises have stemmed
from lacks regulations and light
punishments in a current vaccine prices
for example for the 250,000 ineffective
vaccines they only got a fine of about 3
million yen or 440 thousand US dollars
which is really low so if the country
lacks regulation and the punishment for
violation of the rules is low it's a
really big temptation for local makers
to use low-cost materials even bad
quality products to sell and make a huge
profit the inadequacy of regulations
stems from government efforts to coddle
domestic companies in an effort to help
them grow on top of that imported
medicines and vaccines commonplace
around the world have long been
unavailable because of an arduous drug
approval system Chinese companies had to
repeat all drug trials for imported
medicines to get them signed off on in
China his protected local drug makers
but in October 2017 the country's
regulator abolished this rule by
introducing competitors into the market
that will raise the bar in terms of
quality and social media will continue
to act as regulators
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