From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Med...7

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Mr. Wang remains in custody as the authorities decide whether he should be put to death. The Qiqihar drug plant that made the poisonous medicine has been closed, and five employees are now being prosecuted for causing “a serious accident.”
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In contrast to the Wang Guiping investigation, Chinese authorities have been tentative in acknowledging China’s link to the Panama tragedy, which involved a state-owned trading company. No one in China has been charged with committing the fraud that ended up killing so many in Panama.
Sun Jing, the pharmaceutical program officer for the World Health Organization in Beijing, said the health agency sent a fax “to remind the Chinese government that China should not be selling poisonous products overseas.” Ms. Sun said the agency did not receive an official reply.
Last fall, at the request of the United States — Panama has no diplomatic relations with China — the State Food and Drug Administration of China investigated the Taixing Glycerine Factory and Fortune Way.
The agency tested one batch of glycerin from the factory, and found no glycerin, only diethylene glycol and two other substances, a drug official said.
Since then, the Chinese drug administration has concluded that it has no jurisdiction in the case because the factory is not certified to make medicine.
The agency reached a similar conclusion about Fortune Way, saying that as an exporter it was not engaged in the pharmaceutical business.
“We did not find any evidence that either of these companies had broken the law,” said Yan Jiangying, a spokeswoman for the drug administration. “So a criminal investigation was never opened.”
A drug official said the investigation was subsequently handed off to an agency that tests and certifies commercial products — the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
But the agency acted surprised to learn that it was now in charge. “What investigation?” asked Wang Jian, director of its Taixing branch. “I’m not aware of any investigation involving a glycerin factory.”
Besides, Huang Tong, an investigator in that office, said, “We rarely get involved in products that are sold for export.”
Wan Qigang, the legal representative for the Taixing Glycerine Factory, said in an interview late last year that the authorities had not questioned him about the Panama poisoning, and that his company made only industrial-grade glycerin.
“I can tell you for certain that we have no connection with Panama or Spain,” Mr. Wan said.
But in recent months, the Glycerine Factory has advertised 99.5 percent pure glycerin on the Internet.
Mr. Wan recently declined to answer any more questions. “If you come here as a guest, I will welcome you,” Mr. Wan said. “But if you come again wanting to talk about this matter, I will make a telephone call.”
A local government official said Mr. Wan was told not to grant interviews.
A five-minute walk away, another manufacturer, the Taixing White Oil Factory, also advertises medical glycerin on the Internet, yet it, too, has no authorization to make it. The company’s Web site says its products “have been exported to America, Australia and Italy.”
Ding Xiang, who represents the White Oil Factory, denied that his company made pharmaceutical-grade glycerin, but he said chemical trading companies in Beijing often called, asking for it.
“They want us to mark the barrels glycerin,” Mr. Ding said in late December. “I tell them we cannot do that.”
Mr. Ding said he stopped answering calls from Beijing. “If this stuff is taken overseas and improperly used. ...” He did not complete the thought.
In chemical country, product names are not always what they seem.
“The only two factories in Taixing that make glycerin don’t even make glycerin,” said Jiang Peng, who oversees inspections and investigations in the Taixing branch of the State Food and Drug Administration. “It is a different product.”
All in a Name
One lingering mystery involves the name of the product made by the Taixing Glycerine Factory. The factory had called its syrup “TD” glycerin. The letters TD were in virtually all the shipping documents. What did TD mean?
Spanish medical authorities concluded that it stood for a manufacturing process. Chinese inspectors thought it was the manufacturer’s secret formula.
But Yuan Kailin, a former salesman for the factory , said he knew what the TD meant because a friend and former manager of the factory, Ding Yuming, had once told him. TD stood for the Chinese word “tidai” (pronounced tee-die), said Mr. Yuan, who left his job in 1998 and still lives about a mile from the factory.
In Chinese, tidai means substitute. A clue that might have revealed the poison, the counterfeit product, was hiding in plain sight.
It was in the product name.