Chapter 6 Chapter 05 Why our products are so unreliable
Is there really a problem with Bawang's product quality?
Where did we go wrong?
What is the bottom line of media coverage?
What is the correct role of government?
It is estimated that everyone has seen Bawang's advertisement, the one that invited the international superstar Jackie Chan to endorse.Jackie Chan said in the advertisement that Ba Wang has a history of 100 years and is a well-known Chinese medicine family both at home and abroad.It is also said that their shampoo is made from the essence of Chinese herbal medicines, such as Shouwu, black sesame, ginseng, angelica, ganoderma, mohan, etc., which are refined.The most important thing is that he clearly stated in the advertisement that Bawang is a traditional Chinese medicine without any chemical ingredients.It may be that this sentence left a deep impression on the media. The media was very curious, so they did an actual investigation and announced the results of the investigation.The Hong Kong media "Next Magazine" reported that Bawang's shampoo contains the carcinogen "dioxane".This caused an uproar, and Bawang's carefully crafted image of traditional Chinese medicine was also damaged.
The question is is there really a problem with Bawang's product quality?Actually no.We must know that the mainland and Hong Kong do not have clear limits on the content of dioxane.The European Union and the United States stipulate that the content of dioxane in finished products should be less than 20ppm (twenty parts per million), that is to say, as long as it is not higher than this ratio, the product is safe.In raw materials, as long as the content is less than 100ppm (one hundred millionths), it is also safe. "Next Weekly" said that the Bawang product tested had a dioxane content of 10ppm (10 parts per million), which was lower than the content standards of the European Union and the United States.In other words, Bawang products can be sold in Europe and the United States, and the quality is no problem.In fact, the Guangzhou Institute of Quality Supervision and Monitoring also conducted spot checks on 10 other best-selling shampoos on the market, and 9 of them contained "dioxane".But everyone is fine, only Bawang is so embarrassed, readers want to know why?Let me tell you, there is no problem with the quality of Bawang shampoo, but Bawang did one thing wrong, that is to make false advertisements and conceal the facts.
This is not only the case with Bawang, in fact, in 2008, Yunnan Baiyao toothpaste was brought to court because of false advertising.A consumer in Nanjing often had bleeding gums. He saw the advertisement of Yunnan Baiyao toothpaste saying that it could "inhibit bleeding gums and repair oral ulcers" and was a "national secret formula", so he bought this toothpaste for use. To achieve the effects mentioned in the advertisement, on the contrary, you must go to the hospital for treatment because of sore gums.The consumer was so angry that he sued Yunnan Baiyao Toothpaste Factory, its spokesperson, and the retailer in court.Yunnan Baiyao Toothpaste said that they are not wrong, the entire package label of their product is in line with national standards, and there is an instruction booklet in the package, which also states in detail, "This product cannot replace medicine, but it can help solve tooth problems Dental caries, repairing mucosal damage, nourishing gums, and improving dental health".
In these two cases, we saw that both Bawang and Yunnan Pharmaceuticals said that their products had no problems and fully complied with the quality standards stipulated by the state.None of them understand that what we are pursuing is not whether the product is qualified or not, but that they have made false propaganda.The reason why they always justify it from the perspective of legality is obviously because they have not figured out what mistakes they have made.I wonder if you have ever thought about whether there is any problem behind this phenomenon?Why is this kind of false propaganda always banned repeatedly in China?Is it because we don't do enough to enforce the law, or is the law itself not perfect enough?neither!
When the melamine incident occurred in our mainland, many people went to Hong Kong to buy milk powder.Why?It is because we believe in the quality of Hong Kong food, and the products that can be sold in Hong Kong generally do not have quality problems.How could there be such a big difference?This is because Hong Kong has very severe penalties for illegal activities, and no one is willing to take this risk.Moreover, the Hong Kong government will continue to follow up after the problem arises until the problem is completely resolved.What about the mainland?Judging from previous incidents, it was basically three days of heat, as long as the limelight passed, everything would be fine, and the government would not hold on to it forever.Take a look at our handling of the Sanlu incident.Sanlu has such a big problem, what is the result of our handling? 21 people were sentenced, 2 of them were executed, and the mayor of Shijiazhuang was dismissed.Do readers think this punishment is severe enough?They poisoned so many of our innocent children, and there is nothing wrong with punishing someone who is capable of such a thing.What is even more unbelievable is that the case ended like this, and no one investigated it anymore, and no one made a systematic report at all to discuss why the accident happened.Those who avoided the limelight are also starting to come back. For example, Liu Daqun, the former director of the Hebei Agriculture Department who was recorded as a major demerit, was transferred to Xingtai City as the deputy secretary and mayor of the municipal party committee.What is even more frightening is that not all Sanlu melamine milk powder was destroyed in 2008. In July 2010, melamine milk powder that appeared in Gansu, Qinghai, and Jilin was found to be reprocessed Sanlu milk powder after investigation.From this you can see whether we have learned our lesson, we never know what a lesson learned.
Let's take a look at how Hong Kong handles this kind of thing.
The tainted milk powder incident in Hong Kong. On September 11, 2008, "poisoned milk powder" was exposed, and the Hong Kong government conducted a comprehensive inspection of dairy products on the market that day. Eleven days later, the SAR government urgently promulgated the "Hazardous Substances in Food (Amendment) Regulations 2008".The concentration of melamine in dairy products shall not exceed 1 milligram per kilogram, while the maximum allowable concentration of other foods shall not exceed 2.5 milligrams per kilogram. The standards are stricter than those in Europe and the United States.Since then, the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety has announced new inspection results every day, and it was the first to detect melamine in eggs, followed by Yili ice cream, chocolate sandwich biscuits, etc.If any unqualified products are found, they will be taken off the shelves immediately.
This is how Hong Kong handles problems, and will definitely follow up if something goes wrong. Its purpose is to prevent such incidents from happening again.This measure in Hong Kong has seen results in one month. They tested another 63 varieties on November 1, including milk and milk powder, baby food, eggs and flour samples. The results showed that all were qualified, including those from the mainland. imported.Until now, the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety still announces the test results every day and issues a food safety report every month.So, we can no longer see melamine-related products in Hong Kong now. Let me give another example to see what Hong Kong does when faced with such incidents. In 2004, there was a food poisoning incident in Hong Kong.From January to March, 25 cases of ciguatera food poisoning occurred in Hong Kong, which attracted the attention of the Department of Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene.Then on May 25, the matter was discussed in the Legislative Council, and the truth of the matter was learned: it turned out that the ciguatera poisoning was caused by eating coral fish, but these fish were all alive when they were imported to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong did not have any relevant regulations at that time. Laws and regulations on the import of live marine fish.They decided to implement a policy: "Before importing reef fish from newly developed fishing areas, test for ciguatera toxin first; strengthen the voluntary declaration system and sampling inspection regulations for reef fish." There is no more text.why?Because this kind of thing does not need officials to be responsible in the mainland, and it has nothing to do with the black hat on the heads of these officials, because it is not caused by anyone's fault.But in Hong Kong, they are not perfunctory. On July 13, the Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene Affairs Committee of the Legislative Council reconvened to review whether the previous measure was effective.And began to learn from Australia's experience in preventing such things, and at the same time put forward further suggestions and formulated corresponding regulations. On December 14, in view of the actual situation, the Legislative Council proposed to introduce a mandatory regulation of reef fish plan.Implement the Code of Practice for the Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption, including import licenses, fixed fish unloading docks, mandatory record keeping, and prohibition of the sale of certain products. On 12 July 2005, the Legislative Council met again to review the "Code of Practice for the Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption".This is how they continuously review, and then continuously evaluate its effect.It wasn't until the end that it was found that it really worked, that it was over.Can we do this in the Mainland? The difference between Hong Kong and the mainland can be seen from the handling of these two incidents in Hong Kong above.What is Hong Kong's attitude when facing a matter?Is it to be able to continue to follow up from front to back, and to improve continuously? What is the purpose?It is to satisfy the common people.Once there is any security incident, the supervisory department will definitely disclose it as soon as possible, and the follow-up work will definitely follow up until the problem is completely resolved. Why?Because they are responsible to the common people.Looking at our mainland again, after the Sanlu milk powder incident, no one cares about it anymore. Maybe for the regulatory authorities, if something happens again, it will be nothing more than killing another person and removing two officials again. The problem now is not only the government, but also the media.What is the bottom line of media coverage?If media reports are flawed, should they be held accountable?The U.S. court once established a principle of "true malice" in the New York Times case in 1964.This principle means that if public officials or public figures want to sue the media for defamation, they must prove that the media either "knowingly committed the crime" or "seriously neglected their duties."In other words, either the media clearly knew that the content was false but still published it, or the media had doubts about the content of the report but failed to verify the truth. Let's take a closer look at the New York Times case. The "New York Times" case in 1964 was a milestone in the history of American constitutionalism. The origin of this incident was that a civil rights organization bought a full page of the "New York Times" and published a political propaganda advertisement "Please Hear Them Cry", but only part of it The content was untrue and inaccurate. As a result, the local police officer Sullivan complained, and the lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court.In the judgment of the Supreme Court, the principle of "true malice" that I just mentioned was established.That is to say, as a public official, when he is criticized and accused of handling public affairs, which may damage his personal reputation, he cannot easily sue for defamation and demand compensation from the golden thread, unless the public official can produce evidence to prove the accusation. It is out of "really malicious", "really malicious" means either very clearly proving that the "New York Times" knew in advance that the content of the advertisement was false, but it was true, or proving that the "New York Times" had already doubted the authenticity of the content, But inaction, not to verify the truth of the matter.If you can't do any of these, then the media is protected.This principle later applied not only to public officials, but also to public figures. The U.S. Supreme Court held that "if critics of official actions are compelled by statute to guarantee that all the facts they say are true, otherwise they will be convicted of defamation and punished with unlimited damages, which may lead to 'self-censorship of the news'. ). If the defendant is required to bear the burden of proving that what he said is true, it will not only be imprisoned for false statements, but also for potential critics of official actions. Even if they believe that their criticisms are not false, They are also more likely to speak 'off the beaten track' when speaking because they are unsure whether they can prove what they say is true in court, or because they fear they will not be able to pay the costs of the lawsuit. This hinders the strength of public debate and limits breadth of public debate."
From this case, we can see that American courts are very partial to freedom of speech and press publication.In the United States, the principle is generally agreed, that is, there should be more debates on public affairs. This kind of debate should be free and vigorous, and it should be a broad and open debate. It's okay for public officials to attack, no matter how fierce your words are, how harsh your tone is, and even make the government and officials feel very uncomfortable.But this is not the case if this kind of thing happens in our country.Our laws simply do not protect the media enough.Let me first talk about two examples of correct court decisions. In 2006, a man named Wen Qing, who was the host of CCTV at the time, sued Chongqing Commercial Daily for violating her right of reputation and won the case.Do you see how our court judged? "The court held that the Chongqing Commercial Daily failed to prove that it had checked with the author who wrote Wen Qing's handling of traffic accidents on the Internet when it published the article "Doesn't Answer the Phone After the Car Accident and Doesn't Compensate CCTV Host Wen Qing for What?" Relevant evidence verified by Wenqing, the target of the report. Based on this, the court found that the Chongqing Commercial Daily had failed to fulfill its duty of review, that the report lacked factual basis, and the content was seriously inaccurate, which was enough to cause negative social evaluation for Wenqing and seriously damage his reputation.” We cannot say this The judgment is wrong because it is reasonable in itself. As long as students who have studied journalism know that before the media reports on a certain event, the authenticity of the news needs to be confirmed by at least two or more sources. In this case, it is "true malice". The second example is that "Sports Weekly" once reported that it was rumored that a certain international footballer was involved in gambling.This article was also quoted by the "Oriental Sports Daily", which reported on the title of "Fan Zhiyi Suspected of Gambling in the Battle of China and Colombia".Fan Zhiyi sued "Oriental Sports Daily" for infringing his right of reputation. It was later proved that the report of "Oriental Sports Daily" was not subjective, because they collected 12 pieces of real news evidence before reporting, and the court finally rejected Fan Zhiyi. litigation claims.The judgment is actually very clear, saying that the content of the media reports may not fully reflect the facts, but because the "Oriental Sports Daily" has 12 pieces of news as evidence, it does not meet the principle of "true malice". After the Bawang incident was reported by the media, Bawang always said that he would sue the media. This approach is actually quite ridiculous.For the media, what is the purpose of reporting this event?It is to protect the interests of consumers.Overlord has not figured out the situation until now.The media reported this incident from the perspective of protecting consumers. The media is absolutely right. What reason does your company have to sue others?And as long as the media neither fabricates facts nor deliberately slanders, then such reports are fine.In fact, even if the media reports are not completely consistent with the facts and have some flaws, as long as they can explain the source of the information, or can corroborate each other based on multiple sources of information, then the media has fulfilled its responsibility and can publish this article.In fact, for our media, if we want to truly achieve freedom of speech and say what we want, it still needs a long way to go, and this road is indeed not so easy.Of course, when I say that we can say whatever we want, it does not mean that we can fabricate it out of thin air. The media still needs to have a basis for what they say, and they still need to be responsible. Product quality problems occur frequently, and it seems that ordinary people have failed to arouse the attention of government officials.In fact, Bawang is not a serious problem. After all, the quality of its products has reached the safety standard, and at least it will not endanger the health of our common people.Take a look at our previous incidents of Sudan Red, Chicken McNuggets, tainted milk powder, tainted rice, tainted toothpaste, etc. Once these incidents passed the limelight, basically no one asked about them, and we never saw any follow-up and follow-up. In fact, this kind of thing does not only happen in China, but also in the United States. 100 years ago in the United States, their food and drug production was not much better than ours today, and it was also a mess.They also have all kinds of shady things. The United States at that time was not inferior to the "shady industry" in China today.So why is there such a big gap between us and them now?It is because they know how to "remediate after a sheep is lost".Let me give you an example. In 1937, a pharmaceutical company in the United States used diethylene glycol as a solvent in the antibacterial drug sulfonamide (Youya), killing 107 people. Later, the chemist who designed the drug committed suicide and apologized.According to the law at that time, manufacturers do not have to bear too much responsibility.But after this incident, Americans began to reflect seriously, and later introduced the "Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938," which required all new drugs to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Can be listed.By the 1950s, food additives and pigments were also required to be approved by the FDA before they could be marketed. But at this time, FDA's power is still relatively limited, because after the new drug application, if the FDA does not take action within 60 days, it will be deemed to be automatically approved.It was not until the occurrence of the "reactin" incident that the FDA's power to approve new foods and new drugs was greatly increased. "Acetidine" is actually a tranquilizer, which was produced in Germany in 1957. It can relieve morning sickness in early pregnancy. It was submitted to the FDA in the United States for listing in 1960, but because the FDA detected that this tranquilizer may Contains neurotoxicity, so it has not been approved for a long time.As a result, in 1962, tens of thousands of deformed babies caused by taking "reactin" were found in 46 countries that marketed this tranquilizer.The United States escaped this disaster because it did not approve the tranquilizer for marketing.
This incident made Americans realize the importance of "effectiveness and safety", and also realized that the power of the FDA really needs to be strengthened.It was from this time that the process of obtaining approval for new drugs and new food ingredients in the United States became extremely complicated and lengthy.Development Now, it takes about 5 years for a new drug to go from basic research to obtaining FDA approval for clinical research (IND), and another 7 years from phase I clinical trials to the end of phase III clinical trials; and FDA approval also takes 12 months. moon.Of course, there are many opinions from pharmaceutical companies, but no one dares to challenge the FDA. Have you noticed a phenomenon, now our common people dare to buy products certified by the FDA in the United States, and products certified by the quality supervision department of Hong Kong, China also dare to buy.But if it is a product certified by our domestic geological supervision department, would ordinary people dare to buy it?Take a look at our problematic products, which one has not been certified by the regulatory authorities?Sanlu milk powder is still a national inspection-free product, and Nestle, which has problems, is also an inspection-free product?In fact, I have always been confused about one thing, that is, why is there such a system as "exemption from inspection"?Can the quality of our products really be so good that no testing is required?If most products can be exempted from inspection, how can we establish the authority of law enforcement agencies? Another point we should notice is that the US FDA is not only serious but also very fair when doing things.Let's take saccharin as an example. From the moment saccharin was born, there has been a lot of controversy. The first director of the FDA and the famous chemist Harvey?Willie has determined from the beginning that this thing is harmful to the human body.And because President Roosevelt has diabetes, saccharin can solve his pain, so he insists that saccharin is harmless.In this case, what is the FDA's attitude?Who should I listen to?The fact is that the FDA does not listen to anyone, they only recognize the data.If this kind of thing happened in our country, it is not certain what choice our quality supervision department will make.In 1960, a study proved that eating a large amount of saccharin could cause bladder cancer in mice, but because it could not be conclusively confirmed whether it could cause cancer in humans, Congress required that "saccharin may be a carcinogen" be marked on foods containing saccharin.Since then, they have conducted a lot of research on saccharin, and finally there is no evidence to prove that it has any inevitable connection with human cancer.It was not until 2001, when Clinton signed the Potato Act, that the labeling of saccharin as a possible carcinogen was revoked, that saccharin gained legal status.For such a small saccharin, they all went to war like this and entangled for decades.Such a quality supervision department, do you think they will fool the common people?Are you worried about what they certified?Looking at the FDA's language again, we can feel their rigor: "There is no evidence to show that..." "According to current scientific evidence, the FDA believes that...", if you use words like "sufficient evidence", it must go through a lot of research. Strict and reasonable scientific experiments; and "no evidence" means that a large number of scientific experiments have been done, but no hypothetical results have been found.Look at our regulatory authorities, they always say "certainly", "certainly", "absolutely", and even "exemption from inspection". For them, it seems that they can do whatever they want. Maybe we can't completely blame our supervisory departments, after all, they are taking advantage of other people's mouths and taking advantage of other people's hands.Because in our country, it is reasonable and legal for pharmaceutical companies to sponsor doctors’ travel, scientific research projects, and academic exchanges abroad.In addition, we are much more relaxed than the United States in terms of new drug approval. In 2004 alone, our Food and Drug Administration accepted the approval of 10,009 new drugs, but what about the United States?During the same period, the US Food and Drug Administration accepted only 148 new drug applications for approval. In 2008, my country approved 165 new drugs and 1,502 generic drugs. How many were approved by the US FDA? 24 pieces.You must know that behind the approval of every drug is a huge profit. In 2009, the amount of drugs sold through hospitals in China reached 35.6 billion US dollars, second only to the United States, and we are still increasing at an annual rate of 27%.McKinsey predicts that by 2014, China's total expenditure on health care will reach 521 billion U.S. dollars, and in 2016 it will reach 659 billion U.S. dollars.With such a large market and such huge profits, these pharmaceutical companies will of course try every means to get through these officials with approval authority.Let me show you some information to see how powerful our pharmaceutical companies are and how powerful the power of money is. In 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu, the former director of the Food and Drug Administration, was executed for accepting more than 6.49 million yuan in bribes. Cao Wenzhuang, director of the Drug Registration Department of the Food and Drug Administration, died with a reprieve; China Overseas Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was arrested for "speeding up" the approval of new drugs for 1.3 million yuan in bribes; in May 2010, Zhang Jingli, the former deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration, was double-regulated for facilitating the approval of Johnson & Johnson's import of medical devices; in April 2010 Due to reports from pharmaceutical companies, Wei Liang, researcher of the State Food and Drug Administration, Kong Fanzhong, Drug Certification Management Center of the State Food and Drug Administration, Qi Zibo, former deputy director of the Virus Division II of the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products, and Bai Jianshi, former deputy director of the Blood Products Division Has been approved for arrest. Needless to say, the strength of the pharmaceutical companies in the United States, a drug experiment can easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars.Then how do they ensure that the "referee" is not affected by the pharmaceutical company?It is very important that the drafter of almost every FDA report in the United States must declare a "conflict of interest". Sponsorship or rewards also lose "independence".For the FDA, independent expert opinions are "professional" opinions. If experts conceal "conflicts of interest", they will lose credibility and will not be able to gain a foothold in the entire academic community in the future.And once they are found out, the pharmaceutical factory will not have any good fruit to eat, they will also face severe punishment. Making a list of healthy foods can be difficult because manufacturers make many products that don't match the labels they offer.Many times, I've discovered that some previously purchased, discovered products that were good, actually had some bad ingredients in them, such as flavor enhancers or artificial sweeteners. Another complication is that product labels change back and forth, so something that looks good now might not be good in 12 months.I have also found that a series of products have been taken over by other factories.In fact, recently I went to buy a sausage with a vegan label that I had bought many times before and found out that it had been taken over by another company and had added flavor enhancer - 5' ribose Nucleotide disodium' (E635-Disodium 5 Ribonucleotides, we will refer to this additive in a later article, this is obviously a negative additive code, Andrew once joked that this additive sounds like "radioactive ”), so this company no longer has veggie sausages. The best advice I can give is to make sure you have a coding manual with you when you shop.Another tip is to make sure you're not just reading the front label, for example some products may say they don't contain any colourings, preservatives or fragrances.Caleb was once very excited to discover a new flavored potato chip in the supermarket, which was labeled as "free from colours, preservatives and flavors".I advised Caleb to double check the label, and when he did, he was very disappointed to find that the chips still contained flavor enhancers—E620, E621, and E635. "No fragrance, but it contains flavor enhancers" is so cunning!So we didn't put the chips in our cart. As time goes by, I see more and more manufacturers trying to avoid harmful food additives. This article is excerpted from [Australia] Lillian Reekie's "Truth 1: Hidden Dangers in Food and Everyday Objects"
This is how Hong Kong handles problems, and will definitely follow up if something goes wrong. Its purpose is to prevent such incidents from happening again.This measure in Hong Kong has seen results in one month. They tested another 63 varieties on November 1, including milk and milk powder, baby food, eggs and flour samples. The results showed that all were qualified, including those from the mainland. imported.Until now, the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety still announces the test results every day and issues a food safety report every month.So, we can no longer see melamine-related products in Hong Kong now. Let me give another example to see what Hong Kong does when faced with such incidents. In 2004, there was a food poisoning incident in Hong Kong.From January to March, 25 cases of ciguatera food poisoning occurred in Hong Kong, which attracted the attention of the Department of Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene.Then on May 25, the matter was discussed in the Legislative Council, and the truth of the matter was learned: it turned out that the ciguatera poisoning was caused by eating coral fish, but these fish were all alive when they were imported to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong did not have any relevant regulations at that time. Laws and regulations on the import of live marine fish.They decided to implement a policy: "Before importing reef fish from newly developed fishing areas, test for ciguatera toxin first; strengthen the voluntary declaration system and sampling inspection regulations for reef fish." There is no more text.why?Because this kind of thing does not need officials to be responsible in the mainland, and it has nothing to do with the black hat on the heads of these officials, because it is not caused by anyone's fault.But in Hong Kong, they are not perfunctory. On July 13, the Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene Affairs Committee of the Legislative Council reconvened to review whether the previous measure was effective.And began to learn from Australia's experience in preventing such things, and at the same time put forward further suggestions and formulated corresponding regulations. On December 14, in view of the actual situation, the Legislative Council proposed to introduce a mandatory regulation of reef fish plan.Implement the Code of Practice for the Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption, including import licenses, fixed fish unloading docks, mandatory record keeping, and prohibition of the sale of certain products. On 12 July 2005, the Legislative Council met again to review the "Code of Practice for the Import and Sale of Live Marine Fish for Human Consumption".This is how they continuously review, and then continuously evaluate its effect.It wasn't until the end that it was found that it really worked, that it was over.Can we do this in the Mainland? The difference between Hong Kong and the mainland can be seen from the handling of these two incidents in Hong Kong above.What is Hong Kong's attitude when facing a matter?Is it to be able to continue to follow up from front to back, and to improve continuously? What is the purpose?It is to satisfy the common people.Once there is any security incident, the supervisory department will definitely disclose it as soon as possible, and the follow-up work will definitely follow up until the problem is completely resolved. Why?Because they are responsible to the common people.Looking at our mainland again, after the Sanlu milk powder incident, no one cares about it anymore. Maybe for the regulatory authorities, if something happens again, it will be nothing more than killing another person and removing two officials again. The problem now is not only the government, but also the media.What is the bottom line of media coverage?If media reports are flawed, should they be held accountable?The U.S. court once established a principle of "true malice" in the New York Times case in 1964.This principle means that if public officials or public figures want to sue the media for defamation, they must prove that the media either "knowingly committed the crime" or "seriously neglected their duties."In other words, either the media clearly knew that the content was false but still published it, or the media had doubts about the content of the report but failed to verify the truth. Let's take a closer look at the New York Times case. The "New York Times" case in 1964 was a milestone in the history of American constitutionalism. The origin of this incident was that a civil rights organization bought a full page of the "New York Times" and published a political propaganda advertisement "Please Hear Them Cry", but only part of it The content was untrue and inaccurate. As a result, the local police officer Sullivan complained, and the lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court.In the judgment of the Supreme Court, the principle of "true malice" that I just mentioned was established.That is to say, as a public official, when he is criticized and accused of handling public affairs, which may damage his personal reputation, he cannot easily sue for defamation and demand compensation from the golden thread, unless the public official can produce evidence to prove the accusation. It is out of "really malicious", "really malicious" means either very clearly proving that the "New York Times" knew in advance that the content of the advertisement was false, but it was true, or proving that the "New York Times" had already doubted the authenticity of the content, But inaction, not to verify the truth of the matter.If you can't do any of these, then the media is protected.This principle later applied not only to public officials, but also to public figures. The U.S. Supreme Court held that "if critics of official actions are compelled by statute to guarantee that all the facts they say are true, otherwise they will be convicted of defamation and punished with unlimited damages, which may lead to 'self-censorship of the news'. ). If the defendant is required to bear the burden of proving that what he said is true, it will not only be imprisoned for false statements, but also for potential critics of official actions. Even if they believe that their criticisms are not false, They are also more likely to speak 'off the beaten track' when speaking because they are unsure whether they can prove what they say is true in court, or because they fear they will not be able to pay the costs of the lawsuit. This hinders the strength of public debate and limits breadth of public debate."
From this case, we can see that American courts are very partial to freedom of speech and press publication.In the United States, the principle is generally agreed, that is, there should be more debates on public affairs. This kind of debate should be free and vigorous, and it should be a broad and open debate. It's okay for public officials to attack, no matter how fierce your words are, how harsh your tone is, and even make the government and officials feel very uncomfortable.But this is not the case if this kind of thing happens in our country.Our laws simply do not protect the media enough.Let me first talk about two examples of correct court decisions. In 2006, a man named Wen Qing, who was the host of CCTV at the time, sued Chongqing Commercial Daily for violating her right of reputation and won the case.Do you see how our court judged? "The court held that the Chongqing Commercial Daily failed to prove that it had checked with the author who wrote Wen Qing's handling of traffic accidents on the Internet when it published the article "Doesn't Answer the Phone After the Car Accident and Doesn't Compensate CCTV Host Wen Qing for What?" Relevant evidence verified by Wenqing, the target of the report. Based on this, the court found that the Chongqing Commercial Daily had failed to fulfill its duty of review, that the report lacked factual basis, and the content was seriously inaccurate, which was enough to cause negative social evaluation for Wenqing and seriously damage his reputation.” We cannot say this The judgment is wrong because it is reasonable in itself. As long as students who have studied journalism know that before the media reports on a certain event, the authenticity of the news needs to be confirmed by at least two or more sources. In this case, it is "true malice". The second example is that "Sports Weekly" once reported that it was rumored that a certain international footballer was involved in gambling.This article was also quoted by the "Oriental Sports Daily", which reported on the title of "Fan Zhiyi Suspected of Gambling in the Battle of China and Colombia".Fan Zhiyi sued "Oriental Sports Daily" for infringing his right of reputation. It was later proved that the report of "Oriental Sports Daily" was not subjective, because they collected 12 pieces of real news evidence before reporting, and the court finally rejected Fan Zhiyi. litigation claims.The judgment is actually very clear, saying that the content of the media reports may not fully reflect the facts, but because the "Oriental Sports Daily" has 12 pieces of news as evidence, it does not meet the principle of "true malice". After the Bawang incident was reported by the media, Bawang always said that he would sue the media. This approach is actually quite ridiculous.For the media, what is the purpose of reporting this event?It is to protect the interests of consumers.Overlord has not figured out the situation until now.The media reported this incident from the perspective of protecting consumers. The media is absolutely right. What reason does your company have to sue others?And as long as the media neither fabricates facts nor deliberately slanders, then such reports are fine.In fact, even if the media reports are not completely consistent with the facts and have some flaws, as long as they can explain the source of the information, or can corroborate each other based on multiple sources of information, then the media has fulfilled its responsibility and can publish this article.In fact, for our media, if we want to truly achieve freedom of speech and say what we want, it still needs a long way to go, and this road is indeed not so easy.Of course, when I say that we can say whatever we want, it does not mean that we can fabricate it out of thin air. The media still needs to have a basis for what they say, and they still need to be responsible. Product quality problems occur frequently, and it seems that ordinary people have failed to arouse the attention of government officials.In fact, Bawang is not a serious problem. After all, the quality of its products has reached the safety standard, and at least it will not endanger the health of our common people.Take a look at our previous incidents of Sudan Red, Chicken McNuggets, tainted milk powder, tainted rice, tainted toothpaste, etc. Once these incidents passed the limelight, basically no one asked about them, and we never saw any follow-up and follow-up. In fact, this kind of thing does not only happen in China, but also in the United States. 100 years ago in the United States, their food and drug production was not much better than ours today, and it was also a mess.They also have all kinds of shady things. The United States at that time was not inferior to the "shady industry" in China today.So why is there such a big gap between us and them now?It is because they know how to "remediate after a sheep is lost".Let me give you an example. In 1937, a pharmaceutical company in the United States used diethylene glycol as a solvent in the antibacterial drug sulfonamide (Youya), killing 107 people. Later, the chemist who designed the drug committed suicide and apologized.According to the law at that time, manufacturers do not have to bear too much responsibility.But after this incident, Americans began to reflect seriously, and later introduced the "Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938," which required all new drugs to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Can be listed.By the 1950s, food additives and pigments were also required to be approved by the FDA before they could be marketed. But at this time, FDA's power is still relatively limited, because after the new drug application, if the FDA does not take action within 60 days, it will be deemed to be automatically approved.It was not until the occurrence of the "reactin" incident that the FDA's power to approve new foods and new drugs was greatly increased. "Acetidine" is actually a tranquilizer, which was produced in Germany in 1957. It can relieve morning sickness in early pregnancy. It was submitted to the FDA in the United States for listing in 1960, but because the FDA detected that this tranquilizer may Contains neurotoxicity, so it has not been approved for a long time.As a result, in 1962, tens of thousands of deformed babies caused by taking "reactin" were found in 46 countries that marketed this tranquilizer.The United States escaped this disaster because it did not approve the tranquilizer for marketing.
This incident made Americans realize the importance of "effectiveness and safety", and also realized that the power of the FDA really needs to be strengthened.It was from this time that the process of obtaining approval for new drugs and new food ingredients in the United States became extremely complicated and lengthy.Development Now, it takes about 5 years for a new drug to go from basic research to obtaining FDA approval for clinical research (IND), and another 7 years from phase I clinical trials to the end of phase III clinical trials; and FDA approval also takes 12 months. moon.Of course, there are many opinions from pharmaceutical companies, but no one dares to challenge the FDA. Have you noticed a phenomenon, now our common people dare to buy products certified by the FDA in the United States, and products certified by the quality supervision department of Hong Kong, China also dare to buy.But if it is a product certified by our domestic geological supervision department, would ordinary people dare to buy it?Take a look at our problematic products, which one has not been certified by the regulatory authorities?Sanlu milk powder is still a national inspection-free product, and Nestle, which has problems, is also an inspection-free product?In fact, I have always been confused about one thing, that is, why is there such a system as "exemption from inspection"?Can the quality of our products really be so good that no testing is required?If most products can be exempted from inspection, how can we establish the authority of law enforcement agencies? Another point we should notice is that the US FDA is not only serious but also very fair when doing things.Let's take saccharin as an example. From the moment saccharin was born, there has been a lot of controversy. The first director of the FDA and the famous chemist Harvey?Willie has determined from the beginning that this thing is harmful to the human body.And because President Roosevelt has diabetes, saccharin can solve his pain, so he insists that saccharin is harmless.In this case, what is the FDA's attitude?Who should I listen to?The fact is that the FDA does not listen to anyone, they only recognize the data.If this kind of thing happened in our country, it is not certain what choice our quality supervision department will make.In 1960, a study proved that eating a large amount of saccharin could cause bladder cancer in mice, but because it could not be conclusively confirmed whether it could cause cancer in humans, Congress required that "saccharin may be a carcinogen" be marked on foods containing saccharin.Since then, they have conducted a lot of research on saccharin, and finally there is no evidence to prove that it has any inevitable connection with human cancer.It was not until 2001, when Clinton signed the Potato Act, that the labeling of saccharin as a possible carcinogen was revoked, that saccharin gained legal status.For such a small saccharin, they all went to war like this and entangled for decades.Such a quality supervision department, do you think they will fool the common people?Are you worried about what they certified?Looking at the FDA's language again, we can feel their rigor: "There is no evidence to show that..." "According to current scientific evidence, the FDA believes that...", if you use words like "sufficient evidence", it must go through a lot of research. Strict and reasonable scientific experiments; and "no evidence" means that a large number of scientific experiments have been done, but no hypothetical results have been found.Look at our regulatory authorities, they always say "certainly", "certainly", "absolutely", and even "exemption from inspection". For them, it seems that they can do whatever they want. Maybe we can't completely blame our supervisory departments, after all, they are taking advantage of other people's mouths and taking advantage of other people's hands.Because in our country, it is reasonable and legal for pharmaceutical companies to sponsor doctors’ travel, scientific research projects, and academic exchanges abroad.In addition, we are much more relaxed than the United States in terms of new drug approval. In 2004 alone, our Food and Drug Administration accepted the approval of 10,009 new drugs, but what about the United States?During the same period, the US Food and Drug Administration accepted only 148 new drug applications for approval. In 2008, my country approved 165 new drugs and 1,502 generic drugs. How many were approved by the US FDA? 24 pieces.You must know that behind the approval of every drug is a huge profit. In 2009, the amount of drugs sold through hospitals in China reached 35.6 billion US dollars, second only to the United States, and we are still increasing at an annual rate of 27%.McKinsey predicts that by 2014, China's total expenditure on health care will reach 521 billion U.S. dollars, and in 2016 it will reach 659 billion U.S. dollars.With such a large market and such huge profits, these pharmaceutical companies will of course try every means to get through these officials with approval authority.Let me show you some information to see how powerful our pharmaceutical companies are and how powerful the power of money is. In 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu, the former director of the Food and Drug Administration, was executed for accepting more than 6.49 million yuan in bribes. Cao Wenzhuang, director of the Drug Registration Department of the Food and Drug Administration, died with a reprieve; China Overseas Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was arrested for "speeding up" the approval of new drugs for 1.3 million yuan in bribes; in May 2010, Zhang Jingli, the former deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration, was double-regulated for facilitating the approval of Johnson & Johnson's import of medical devices; in April 2010 Due to reports from pharmaceutical companies, Wei Liang, researcher of the State Food and Drug Administration, Kong Fanzhong, Drug Certification Management Center of the State Food and Drug Administration, Qi Zibo, former deputy director of the Virus Division II of the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products, and Bai Jianshi, former deputy director of the Blood Products Division Has been approved for arrest. Needless to say, the strength of the pharmaceutical companies in the United States, a drug experiment can easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars.Then how do they ensure that the "referee" is not affected by the pharmaceutical company?It is very important that the drafter of almost every FDA report in the United States must declare a "conflict of interest". Sponsorship or rewards also lose "independence".For the FDA, independent expert opinions are "professional" opinions. If experts conceal "conflicts of interest", they will lose credibility and will not be able to gain a foothold in the entire academic community in the future.And once they are found out, the pharmaceutical factory will not have any good fruit to eat, they will also face severe punishment. Making a list of healthy foods can be difficult because manufacturers make many products that don't match the labels they offer.Many times, I've discovered that some previously purchased, discovered products that were good, actually had some bad ingredients in them, such as flavor enhancers or artificial sweeteners. Another complication is that product labels change back and forth, so something that looks good now might not be good in 12 months.I have also found that a series of products have been taken over by other factories.In fact, recently I went to buy a sausage with a vegan label that I had bought many times before and found out that it had been taken over by another company and had added flavor enhancer - 5' ribose Nucleotide disodium' (E635-Disodium 5 Ribonucleotides, we will refer to this additive in a later article, this is obviously a negative additive code, Andrew once joked that this additive sounds like "radioactive ”), so this company no longer has veggie sausages. The best advice I can give is to make sure you have a coding manual with you when you shop.Another tip is to make sure you're not just reading the front label, for example some products may say they don't contain any colourings, preservatives or fragrances.Caleb was once very excited to discover a new flavored potato chip in the supermarket, which was labeled as "free from colours, preservatives and flavors".I advised Caleb to double check the label, and when he did, he was very disappointed to find that the chips still contained flavor enhancers—E620, E621, and E635. "No fragrance, but it contains flavor enhancers" is so cunning!So we didn't put the chips in our cart. As time goes by, I see more and more manufacturers trying to avoid harmful food additives. This article is excerpted from [Australia] Lillian Reekie's "Truth 1: Hidden Dangers in Food and Everyday Objects"