The Food and Drug Administration has opened offices in three Chinese cities, viz, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to help improve the safety of medicines and ingredients imported into the US. The FDA's main office will be in Beijing, with the Shanghai and Guangzhou locations serving as inspection stations.
The Beijing office was opened in a formal ceremony last week attended by Michael Leavitt, US Secretary of Health and Human Services; Andrew von Eschenbach FDA Commissioner and Shao Mingli, China's deputy health minister and head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA). The opening of the new offices is timely, following a series of scandals involving Chinese products in the US and other world markets, including contaminated medicines, foods, and personal care products such as toothpaste. 'A permanent FDA presence in China will help the agency to address the challenges presented by globalisation. In particular it would allow the FDA to respond more quickly to any problems that occur,' said von Eschenbach.
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