Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai, October 20th　Question: Why do high-risk products containing "banned drugs" become "online celebrity"?

　　Xinhua News Agency reporter Lan Tianming

　　On the 18th, Guo Meimei, a "online celebrity", was sentenced to two years and six months’ imprisonment and fined 200,000 yuan by the Shanghai Railway Transport Court for selling poisonous "slimming candy" containing sibutramine.

　　Sibutramine has been banned in China for about 11 years because of its great health risks. However, the Xinhua News Agency reporter found that its illegal transactions have not been completely cut off, and the recent cases of illegal production and sale of sibutramine have shown a resurgence trend. Some e-commerce platforms can still easily buy weight-loss products with sibutramine.

　　After being banned for 11 years, high-risk "banned drugs" hid in "online celebrity slimming products"

　　The reporter learned that Guo Meimei’s illegal "slimming candy" containing sibutramine has many fans.

　　Song Zhihui, deputy director of the Pharmacy Department of Beijing Tongren Hospital, said that sibutramine may affect the digestive system, nervous system, central and peripheral nervous system and cardiovascular system, leading to endocrine and metabolic disorders, mental stress and sleep disorders. "The most serious thing is that it may cause myocardial infarction, stroke and cardiac arrest. Especially for patients with heart diseases or cerebrovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease and arrhythmia, the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular accidents is higher."

　　According to the information of official website, National Medical Products Administration, in 2010, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a document to stop the production, sale and use of sibutramine preparations and APIs in China, and revoked its approval documents. The drugs that have been marketed are recalled and destroyed by the production enterprises.

　　Over the years, the relevant departments have always insisted on cracking down on the illegal production, sale and use of sibutramine, but the weight-loss products containing sibutramine are still not extinct, and some of them are among the "online celebrity products".

　　The reporter learned from the Suzhou Drug Inspection and Testing Research Center that in 2019, the researchers of the center tested 84 batches of weight-loss health foods sampled by the market supervision and sent by the public security, and found that 62 batches illegally added a total of 7 chemicals, of which 50 batches were found to have added sibutramine.

　　Recently, the reporter checked the China Judgment Document Network and found that from 2013 to now, there were more than 900 criminal cases involving sibutramine, and more than 130 cases were caused by the crime of producing and selling counterfeit drugs; There are more than 730 cases of producing and selling toxic and harmful food, including more than 250 related cases in 2020, and the number is increasing year by year.

　　Taobao and Pinduoduo can buy products containing "poison" and Baidu can search sellers of prohibited raw materials.

　　The reporter tried to buy such slimming products on Taobao, Xianyu, Pinduoduo and other e-commerce platforms, and found that most of the two parties used code words, such as "old demon jar", "angel kiss" and "blue rider".

　　The reporter also found that attractive advertising slogans such as "models only", "super satiety", "sudden thinness" and "knowing how to come" are very common, and some merchants promised to lose 8 to 23 pounds in January, "no dieting, no exercise" and "send another bottle if you don’t lose weight".

　　The reporter selected three businesses with a large number of sales, and bought slimming capsules and slimming candy respectively. After screening with sibutramine bright screen reagent, sibutramine was initially detected in all three products.

　　The reporter also found that sibutramine, which is forbidden to be produced and sold, can also be easily bought. The reporter easily found the contact information of a number of sibutramine production and marketing enterprises through Baidu search, and successfully contacted many salespeople. A salesperson said that the price of sibutramine for the "first cooperation" was 7,000 yuan per kilogram and sent samples to reporters.

　　"In related cases, the content of sibutramine in some diet candy is as high as 30mg per pill, and the merchants will continuously increase the content of sibutramine in the products for people who often use drugs according to the needs of customers, even close to 50mg." Ma Xun, deputy director of the Third Procuratorate of Shanghai Railway Transport Procuratorate, told the reporter.

　　She also revealed that in the cases handled, some weight-loss products contained sibutramine, but the merchants disguised them as natural enzymes, pure Chinese patent medicines, L-carnitine and sold them in meal replacement powder.

　　Some consumers mistakenly buy such weight-loss products, and their lives are in danger. "About an hour after eating the diet capsule, I began to feel flustered, and my heart rate obviously accelerated. My heart rate soared from more than 70 times per minute to 110 times, which lasted for more than three hours. Wechat business told me to keep drinking water, and I peed six times in an hour. " Shanghai’s Ms. Zhang described her reaction after taking a certain "online celebrity slimming capsule" bought in Taobao.

　　Building supervision and working together to explore the "root-cutting" governance method

　　Experts believe that the huge sales profits of related products, loopholes in the supervision of APIs, and false responsibilities of e-commerce platforms and transportation and delivery enterprises are the important reasons for the current "endless" and "impenetrable" sibutramine.

　　Ma Xun told reporters: "The cost of 50 cents includes sibutramine ‘ Candy ’ The terminal price is about 70 yuan, and the sales price has doubled. "

　　"Because sibutramine preparations and APIs have stopped producing and selling in China, sibutramine is different from other APIs and is not monitored by the whole chain of production, warehousing, logistics and sales. Some unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies may take advantage of production gaps and use industrial equipment to engage in illegal production without leaving relevant records, just like ‘ Black under the lamp ’ 。” Shi Lichen, head of Beijing Dingchen Medicine Management Consulting Center, said.

　　He suggested that it is necessary to further strengthen the rectification of pharmaceutical production enterprises, strictly regulate the supplier audit, purchase warehousing, inspection and change behavior of APIs, completely plug the loopholes in the inflow of chemical raw materials and the outflow of APIs from unknown sources, and stop all kinds of illegal and flexible illegal production and sales behaviors.

　　Liu Peng, a professor at the School of Public Administration of Renmin University of China, believes that the regulatory authorities should not only continue to strengthen the source control, but also increase the punishment for the responsible persons of enterprises that illegally produce illegal drugs. Besides general administrative punishment and civil means, they should make use of criminal law and other laws and regulations to give full play to the deterrent effect of punishment.

　　Zhang Zhuo, a professor at the School of Pharmacy of Southwest Medical University, suggested that e-commerce and live broadcast platforms should practice the hierarchical supervision and management responsibilities of "stopping, punishing, reporting and stopping services" for problem businesses and users, and systematically rectify illegal health food operators who "hang sheep’s heads and sell dog meat". "Strengthen the keyword review of banned drugs or counterfeit drugs to prevent criminals from using ‘ Code word ’ On the platform ‘ Open ’ Trading dead ends. "

　　Lawyer Guo Yutao, a partner of Beijing Gefeng Law Firm, said: "According to relevant laws, when consumers buy diet foods containing prohibited ingredients through e-commerce platforms without knowing it, they can claim compensation from merchants and others when their health is infringed. If the e-commerce platform knows or should know that the merchant uses its platform to infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and fails to take necessary measures, it shall bear joint liability with the seller or service provider according to law. "

　　Liu Peng also reminded that the problem that express delivery has become the flow channel of some illegal drugs has become increasingly prominent. In practice, the postal departments and express delivery companies are not clear enough about the list of prohibited drugs, and the supervision over the delivery of prohibited drugs except narcotics and special drugs needs to be improved. This requires the drug supervision department and the postal department to share information and further strengthen the supervision linkage.