Why has the bottom line of food and drug safety been broken out repeatedly?

At the 315 Party of CCTV this year, many hot strip manufacturers in Lankao County of Henan Province and Pingjiang County of Hunan Province were exposed. The picture displayed on TV is dirty. Dust and rags, electronic scales and oil are mixed together. Various additives and preservatives are put into the machine drum and mixed into hot strips. The people take food as their heaven, and food takes safety as their first. Food and medicine are related to life and health, involving millions of households, and are the focus of attention of the whole society. However, the frequent emergence of food and drug problems has exacerbated people's anxiety.

The Third Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Discipline Commission emphasized that special rectification should be carried out in the field of people's livelihood, focusing on the focus of the pain points and difficulties of the masses. Among them, food and drug safety is one of the "focus".

Food and drug safety issues repeatedly exposed

Food safety has always been a thorn in the hearts of the people. In recent years, various regions and departments concerned have implemented the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and have done a lot of work in system building, strengthening management, supervision and inspection, etc. Food safety has been improving. However, there is still a big gap between food and drug safety and the demands of the masses. Zhang Mao, director of the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration, said. In October 2018, a market in Pingle County, Guilin City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was exposed to illegally dye and defrost purchased persimmon cakes with prohibited food additives in order to make persimmon cakes attractive and convenient for long-distance transportation. According to the source, the market is "overseen" and therefore unregulated. After receiving the report, local law enforcement officers seized and destroyed 3500 kg of illegally processed persimmon. At the same time, the discipline inspection and supervision department of Pingle County initiated the accountability mechanism to investigate comprehensively whether there are public officials involved in the operation and act as "umbrella".

Tongrentang, a centuries-old brand, is also involved in the whirlpool of public opinion because of food safety issues. On December 15, 2018, Jiangsu TV exposed that Beijing Tongrentang honey producers were suspected of violating regulations in the production of food honey. They recycled a large number of expired and expired honey into the raw material warehouse, and there was a problem of changing the production date. For a time, the public opinion was in uproar. After the Honey Gate Incident, Tongrentang was fined up to ten million yuan and its business license was revoked. The Beijing Discipline Commission has launched an investigation into the honey problem of Tongrentang Group in Beijing. 14 people including Mei Qun, former Party secretary and chairman of Tongrentang Group in Beijing, have been held accountable. Drugs are special commodities for curing diseases and saving people. They are also related to human health and life safety. However, the repeated "thunderbolts" in the field of drug safety have not alleviated the "food and drug anxiety" of the public.

On August 1, 2018, the State Drug Administration, together with the State Health Commission and other departments, organized a verification team to Hubei Province to verify the disposal of the unqualified DPT vaccine produced by Wuhan Biological Products Research Institute Co., Ltd., which was discovered in 2017. According to statistics, a total of 405,000 problematic vaccines from Wuhan biology have entered the market, which has aroused strong social concern. In the DPT vaccine incident, 11 dereliction of duty supervisors from Hubei Provincial Food and Drug Administration, Wuhan Municipal Government and Wuhan Provincial Food and Drug Administration were seriously accountable. On January 7, 2019, an outdated oral vaccine incident happened in Licheng Health Hospital of Jinhu County, Jiangsu Province, which made the public focus on the vaccine again. After investigation, 145 children were vaccinated with outdated polio vaccine.

After investigation, it was confirmed that the incident was a serious liability accident caused by the inadequate implementation of the main responsibility of the local government, inadequate supervision by the competent authorities, confusion in the management of vaccination units and irregular operation of staff. Thirty-three responsible persons, including Gu Kun, Vice Mayor of Huai'an City, were seriously held accountable.

The storm can be calmed down, but the wounds left by food and drug safety problems in the hearts of the people are not easy to cure. Experts pointed out that the outbreak of a series of food and drug safety incidents prone to trigger public anxiety about food and drug safety; anxiety stimulates and amplifies the public's irrational behavior, which makes false food and drug safety information and even rumors spread widely, eventually leading to a long-term depression in public satisfaction with food and drug safety, forming a vicious circle, affecting the people's sense of security and happiness. Why was the bottom line of safety broken through and how could it become a kind of luxury to have a safe meal and medication? Behind the surging public opinion is the pain point of the people's life and health, and also the focus of the people's gathering. At present, there are many problems in food safety, such as excessive residues of agricultural and veterinary drugs, contamination of microorganisms and heavy metals, non-standard use of food additives, fake and sale holidays, and the impact of environmental pollution on food safety is gradually emerging. Zhang Mao said.

Behind the failure of the bottom line of food and drug safety is the lack of responsibility and supervision of a few supervisors, the lack of attention of some leading cadres and the lack of strong sense of responsibility. What's more, in order to seek self-interest, individual leading cadres abuse their power and pervert the law for selfish ends in their supervisory work, and they are willing to act as "umbrella" of enterprises, thus weakening the state's supervision of food and drug safety. Yin Hongzhang, formerly deputy director of the Drug Examination and Approval Center of the State Food and Drug Administration, used his power to serve the people to "turn the green light" on pharmaceutical enterprises and conduct power-money transactions wantonly. From 2002 to 2015, Yin Hongzhang took advantage of his position to provide drugs for many companies in Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Liaoning.