School children face Chinese chemical plants’ pollution wrath

At PharmaCompass, we often cover regulatory compliance issues being faced by pharmaceutical companies across the world, particularly those in India and China. But recent news from China proves there is a lot more than regulatory compliance drug makers across the world need to worry about. Environmental pollution, for instance, comes with a huge social cost that companies mustn’t ignore. 

This week, we look at recent news pertaining to pollution from drug and chemical plants in China, and how such incidents can impact the global pharmaceutical supply chain.

 

Wearing gas masks to school

Leading Chinese manufacturer – Qilu Pharmaceuticals – made headlines in China when students at neighboring Jinan Licheng Second High School started wearing gas masks to school. The reason – the rotten-egg odor emanating from the sewage discharged by the company was unbearable.

The school shares a common boundary wall with the company that is one of the leading pharmaceutical manufacturers in China. Qilu’s product portfolio has over 160 generic drugs and 100 APIs in therapeutic areas ranging from oncology to ophthalmological diseases. 

According to reports, parents have been complaining to Qilu since 2008. Although the company has pledged to fix the problem, little has been done as the company is still found complying with emission standards. 

The Qilu incident isn’t an isolated one. Over the last two weeks there has been news about adverse effects on children’s health due to environmental pollution generated by other chemical plants as well.  

 

Nosebleeds shut down 28 chemical plants

In Jiangsu province of China, parents blamed noxious fumes coming out of chemical plants in an industrial park, in the proximity, for mysterious nosebleeds and skin irritations being experienced by primary school children.

About 20 second grade pupils of Haian Chengnan Experimental Primary School began suffering from a variety of ailments which made local officials order all chemical makers in an industrial park in Haian county to suspend operations. The school, which has about 1,500 pupils, said it was still trying to determine how many students were affected by the toxic fumes

The local environmental protection bureau said it has set up five monitoring stations to closely check air quality in the area. Haian county is also actively proposing remediation measures to address the problem.

 

A school built near erstwhile chemical plants

Concerns over school safety mounted further this week after the national broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported that students at a prestigious school, not far away from Haian, were suffering from a range of illnesses. CCTV claimed out of 641 students seen by doctors, 493 were suffering with ailments ranging from eczema to lymphoma after attending class at a new campus.

The most likely cause identified for the illnesses was that the school had been built near the former sites of three chemical plants. A key stakeholder in the factories was pesticide and agricultural chemical manufacturer Changlong, which “has a disturbing history of violating environmental laws and regulations.” 

In 2014, a unit of the company was required by a Chinese court to pay more than 80 million yuan (US $ 12.4 million) as part of a settlement aimed at restoring damage to the environment. Work began on the new location of Changzhou Foreign Languages School in 2011 – seven months before the results on the suitability of the land were released. 

According to Greenpeace, “environmental evaluation conducted before the construction of the school suggested that pollution was serious and advised that schools, housing or other public facilities should not be constructed in the area”. On Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, a page related to the case had drawn more than 30 million views.

 

Our view

It was only a few months ago that the FDA detected hydrogen cyanide in a drug product being shipped from Tianjin port after the explosions. PharmaCompass’ analysis indicated that companies need to include a wider contamination risk in their product quality review.

While China’s critical role in the global pharmaceutical supply chain is unquestionable, there are increasing concerns pertaining to compliance and the ever-increasing environmental challenges the industry is throwing before its population of 1.38 billion people. 

Pharmaceutical companies around the world need to closely review the vulnerability of their supply chain in the event some disruption occurs at the Chinese sources of their intermediate or final products.    

 

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Image Credit : SteamPunk Gas Mask C2E2 2012 by Chris Favero is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“ The article is based on the information available in public and which the author believes to be true. The author is not disseminating any information, which the author believes or knows, is confidential or in conflict with the privacy of any person. The views expressed or information supplied through this article is mere opinion and observation of the author. The author does not intend to defame, insult or, cause loss or damage to anyone, in any manner, through this article.”