Chinese medicine market rectification storm struck

The unannounced visits by the State Food and Drug Administration (hereinafter referred to as “Food and Drug Administration”) to the five large Chinese herbal medicine markets in early July showed that many of the medicinal herbs sold in the Chinese herbal medicine market in many parts of the country are counterfeit and inferior. , doping make false, illegal management, illegal processing and other phenomena.

Due to the extensive and complex problems, the quality supervision of Chinese herbal medicines is attracting the attention of relevant departments. On July 17th, the Food and Drug Administration had deployed a nationwide special campaign of “two dozens and two constructions” for drugs, among which the fight against the illegal production of traditional Chinese medicines and the improvement of the professional market of Chinese herbal medicines was one of the focuses.

Yesterday morning, the State Food and Drug Administration held a seminar on the remediation of traditional Chinese medicinal materials in the Beijing Friendship Hotel and interviewed government officials in 17 counties in Anhui Province and Hebei, Anguo, etc. These places are all concentrated national herbal medicine markets. location.

At the above-mentioned meeting chaired by Wu Jian, Deputy Director of the Food and Drug Administration, not only the 5 unannounced visits of the Food and Drug Administration, but also the presentation format, presented the participants with some chaos and 17 Chinese herbal medicine professionals. The person in charge of the market where the market is located signed the "Responsibility Document for the Management of the Market of Chinese Medicinal Materials" in order to standardize the market for Chinese medicinal materials.

The journalist's unannounced visit to the presentation by the Food and Drug Administration's Working Group showed that counterfeiting, adulteration, illegal operation, and illegal processing have become popular in the Chinese herbal medicine market and constitute a secret “underground kingdom”.

“Today, 17 city and municipal governments have invited Chinese herbal medicines (markets). The purpose is to give everyone questions and resolutely carry out remediation. Today, we will be an informal meeting. It is actually the beginning of the reorganization of Chinese herbal medicines market.” Said at the meeting.

Chinese herbal medicine market chaos

According to the unannounced visits by the Food and Drug Administration's Working Group in the five major Chinese herbal medicine markets in Luzhou, Anhui, Anguo, Hebei, Hehuachi, Chengdu, Qingping, Guangdong, and Yulin, Guangxi, the current problems in the Chinese herbal medicine market are universal.

Only in Zhangzhou, Anhui Province, the working group found nine problems such as weight gain and shoddy.

According to an unannounced visit to Zhangzhou, the team found that the Ho Traviata and Python were heavily adulterated and gaining weight. The artillery was widely used to increase the weight of the artillery pieces and pigs. In the abdomen of sea dragons and seahorses, dextrins, cement, etc. were infested. Medicinal materials such as scorpions and earthworms are full of impurities.

Unannounced visits by the Working Group found that some medicinal materials were extracted after they had been extracted with active ingredients. Such as ginseng, American ginseng, etc., velvet antler taste very light, Sophora flavescens, Coptis, Phellodendron color light, no bitterness.

Dyeing is also quite serious. The Zhuozhou Working Group found that there were staining phenomena in safflower (paper fiber dyeing), Phellodendron amurense, Wumei, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Schisandra, cinnabar, Suanzaoren, and hawthorn meat.

Shoddy is also popular. Such as flat Fritillaria filling Fritillaria, Mount Ophiopogon, Ophiopogon japonicus, Cynomorium filled Cistanche, to other snakes to charge money white snakes and so on.

In terms of adulteration, the working group found that if sunshiny ginseng is incorporated into American ginseng and ebony, it may be mixed with apricots, plums, and other similarly doped fake medicinal herbs in as many as a dozen species. In addition, the unannounced visits to the group also found that some non-medicinal parts of the drug seriously exceeded the standard: If the saponins are thorns, there are fewer punctures and more stems, there are fewer flesh in the hawthorn meat and there are more fruit nucleus.

The working group found that the abuse of pesticides and chemical fertilizers caused the quality of medicinal herbs to decline, the curative effect was reduced, and the appearance of herbs was changed. Such as earthworms, fleece-flower root appear wood, Salvia, Astragalus become harder and larger.

Excessive use of sulfur fumigation is also a problem that can not be ignored, and these herbs include Fritillaria, Coix seed, Chishao, Scutellaria, Ginkgo and so on. There are also dozens of kinds of Chinese herbal medicines that have serious quality problems, such as white peony root and bright dangshen.

The working group found that toxic medicines can be easily purchased in the herbal medicine market. Such as cinnabar, realgar, ladybug, green lady, spotted turtle and so on.

The working group made an unannounced visit to the market around Zhangzhou and found that there were illegal processing and production of gunpharmaceutical materials.

“A lot of dregs were seen in the field on the right side of the road into Lilou Village. The villagers were packing and loading vehicles. In the village of Jiangtun, it was found that three elderly people were cutting the medicine with a slicing machine; the empty space in the village There are some Chinese herbs drying on the ground. On both sides of the road in the town of Xiali, there are numerous herbal trading shops and one family is close by. There are two kilometers of stretches."

In addition to the same problems mentioned above, in the Hebei Anguo Chinese herbal medicines trading market, the working group visited 12 nearby villages. Some of these villages have stored medicines in the open air. Several unlicensed household decoction pieces and workshops are poorly equipped. Worrying, the quality of herbs is worrying.

In the case of the North Qigong Village, an unannounced visit by the Working Group found that the villagers of the Chinese herbal medicine processing in this village are solely processing pieces of their own individual processing. There are no specifications for the processing of the decoction pieces, and the quality is not guaranteed. Some processing households also forged the certificate of Chinese medicine decoction pieces.

In the western area's largest professional market for lotus ponds in Chengdu, the working group not only discovered that there were specialty stores, mahogany furniture stores, etc., mixed with Chinese herbal medicines and decoction pieces, but also had business operators clearly declared that there were two kinds of goods that were both good and bad, one point. Money for goods, if there is no sulfur Chuanbei, non-sodium yam, water, scent, incense, incense, package inspection and so on.

The working group encountered a small underground workshop that processed traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces near Wulu Stone in Chengdu and discovered that some varieties used plant growth regulators and pesticides during the planting process, and some varieties were extracted and then sold.

According to the Food and Drug Administration's working group's unannounced visits to Qingping, Guangdong and Yulin, Guangxi, many of these situations exist.

Rectifying the storm

“Is only the five places existed in these five places? Is there any other place? No, it's only a different degree.” After completing the above-mentioned reports, the five major unannounced visiting groups said: “These issues must be thoroughly addressed. To solve these problems is very serious."

At the conference venue, our reporter saw that all the participants were dignified, and from the lineup of the Symposium for the remediation of the Chinese medicinal materials professional market of the China Food and Drug Administration, as Wu Min said, “It is actually a reorganization of the Chinese herbal medicine market. s begin."

According to Wu Hao, the Chinese herbal medicine market has a long history, being short-lived for hundreds of years, and long for thousands of years. From the 90s of the last century, a large number of Chinese herbal medicine markets emerged throughout the country.

From 1993 to 1995, the State Council rectified and closed more than 100 Chinese herbal medicine markets. The move was large. Only 17 Chinese medicinal material markets were retained. In these 20 years, there were no new approvals, and they would not be approved in the future.

“The market for these Chinese medicinal materials is a legacy of history. We must cherish it, manage it, and regulate it. This is our responsibility.” Wu Xi said.

“The government should have shot it out and launched a heavy blow. Otherwise, our traditional Chinese medicine cause may be destroyed in our hands. There have been no such serious problems in the past.” said Wen Zaixing, deputy director of the Department of Market Order of the Ministry of Commerce.

According to a person from the Ganzhou municipal government who attended the meeting, since July 17, the General Administration of Food and Drug Administration convened the “Two Dozens and Two Constructions” meeting. Luzhou held a meeting overnight and set up a special group. Luzhou has inspected a total of 5,000 stalls and stores, set up a reporting bonus of 1 million yuan, and a one-time reward of up to 200,000 yuan.

The Yasukuni Market has already signed a statement of responsibility. It not only inspected the exposed products, but also inspected other products. With townships as the mainstay, local products and intermediate breeds must be tested.

"We will strengthen daily supervision to establish long-term mechanisms, focus on three issues, and strictly enforce market access. Our professional market accounts for more than 1,500 merchants, grasps the market, and pays attention to training. We will increase media publicity and establish regular The media spot check was announced. Drugs and food are announced," said one person from the Guangzhou municipal government.

Our reporter learned at the meeting that Yulin City, Guangxi Province, has carried out rectifications on the outside and inside of the market, focusing on the investigation of dyeing artificial weight gain, and rectifying illegally processed Chinese herbal medicines. Investigated 741 business households.

According to the reporter’s understanding, in addition to the five local government officials who had made unannounced visits to the meeting, the local governments of the remaining 12 Chinese herbal medicine markets also participated in the discussion, and these places were scattered all over China’s north and south.

Also in the reorganization meeting, the heads of the government of the 17 Chinese herbal medicine specialty markets signed the “Responsibility Document for the Management of the Market of Chinese Medicinal Materials,” and expressed that they would fully organize the remediation of the Chinese medicinal material market in order to form a standardized, healthy Chinese herbal medicine. Professional market.

How to rectify?

“These unqualified Chinese herbal medicines have no effect on diseases first, followed by some Chinese herbal medicines that are toxic and harmful to the body. For example, sulfur, and it takes a long time to eat, can cause damage to the liver and kidneys. Many problems arise. Some expensive medicines and scarce medicines, so we dare not open expensive medicines." An expert of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who declined to be named, told this reporter.

According to the reporter’s understanding, in 2008 the vertical supervision of the drug regulatory system was abolished, and the power of supervision and regulation had already reached the hands of local governments. In the market of these Chinese herbal medicines, it is not only the employment issue but also the importance of the local government. The local GDP.

The data shows that many professional markets for Chinese medicinal materials are the pillar industries of local governments, which exceeds 10% of local GDP.

The management of Chinese herbal medicines, which has a similar regulatory model with food, also involves the issue of multi-segment sub-regulation. From planting to primary processing and processing, distribution, and to medical institutions, there are different department supervisions. How to manage Chinese herbal medicines well Still a problem.

“The supervision of the Chinese medicinal material market is rather special. Unlike chemicals, there can be standards. The geographical differences in Chinese herbal medicines are relatively large. It is difficult to unify the regulatory models for Chinese herbal medicines. The multi-headed management will exist for a long time. After the cancellation of vertical supervision, local protectionism The letter of responsibility is a social management innovation that uses flexible means to solve problems that cannot be solved by hard means,” said Dr. Hu Yinglian, from the National School of Administration in an interview with this newspaper.

Regarding the existing problems in the Chinese herbal medicine market, Wu Xin said that the Chinese herbal medicines that currently have problems are mainly those that are more expensive, can be dyed and stained, and can increase the weight gain. Not all Chinese herbal medicines have such a situation.

“We can not just regard it as a trading market, there should be a special organization to supervise, there is a person who is responsible for the management of the Chinese herbal medicine market, there are professional inspection equipment, and the corresponding funding guarantee. The management of Chinese medicinal materials involves multiple departments. The supervision must be organized by the local government to do a good job of this work. Who will start who is responsible, because it benefits.” Wu Hao said.

In the vicinity of the chaotic market of Chinese herbal medicines, Chinese herbal medicine processing outlets are scattered everywhere, and the environment and conditions are extremely poor. Wu Hao said that the rectification must purify the surrounding environment of Chinese herbal medicines. Sales of the Chinese herbal medicines in the market is only a performance. The key is how these herbs are processed.

In fact, the Ministry of Commerce began to take over management of the pharmaceutical distribution industry in 2009, mainly in the formulation of industry planning, industrial policies, and reform and development. “We took over one billion yuan after taking over and established a traceability system for Chinese herbal medicines in the four Chinese herbal medicine markets, which has a certain effect,” said Wen Zaixing.

Wu Hao said: "The establishment of our modern warehousing measures, storage is not controllable, is the root cause of counterfeiting in the market, the market's product transactions become uncontrollable, warehousing institutions to establish a unified regulatory measures."

"We are determined to resolutely rectify the market, not for these five markets. We must resolutely rectify the 17 markets. We say that they are rectifications, not closures. The purpose is to return them, how to rectify them, and to mobilize relevant departments under the leadership of the local government. Participate in and carry out market rectification." Wu Yu said.