After a year-long review, China has found that most of the data in sets of clinical trials is fake.
China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) investigated 1,622 clinical trials in the country and found that over 80% of data reviewed was “fabricated.” The questionable “data” failed to meet analysis requirements, were incomplete or simply untraceable, Economic Information Daily reported.
The trials were conducted for new drugs waiting approval for mass production. Since the SFDA’s findings, most applications were cancelled.
Interestingly, the questionable applications were all for Western medicine. Zhang, a doctor from Xian, told Radio Free Asia:
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“There are national standards for clinical trials in the development of Western pharmaceuticals. Clinical trials must be carried out in three phases, and they must be assessed at the very least for safety. But I don’t know what happened here.”
The SFDA said the scandal resulted from “breach of duty by supervision departments and malpractice by pharmaceutical companies, intermediary agents and medical staff.” In addition, it speculated that companies are hiding or deleting records of the drugs’ unwanted effects.
Because medications deal with human life, it’s plain ridiculous to learn that data in these clinical trials are faked. Yet the scandal did not surprise industry insiders, with an unnamed tipster, a physician, confirming:
“Clinical data fabrication was an open secret even before the inspection.”
The scandal only reinforced China’s infamous label as the world’s counterfeit capital. Mai Ke, an activist from Guangdong, had to say:
“It’s not just the medicines. In China, everything is fake, and if there’s a profit in pharmaceuticals, then someone’s going to fake them too.”
