The More Things Stay the Same - More Apparently Adulterated Heparin, This Time from Chinese Ruminants

The story of the contaminated heparin just will not go away.  We first wrote about it in 2008 (see first post here, most related posts here, and the longer summary at the end of this post.)

Quick Summary

Baxter International imported the "active pharmaceutical ingredient" (API) of heparin, that is, in plainer language, the drug itself, from China. That API was then sold, with some minor processing, as a Baxter International product with a Baxter International label. The drug came from a sketchy supply chain that Baxter did not directly supervise, apparently originating in small "workshops" operating under primitive and unsanitary conditions without any meaningful inspection or supervision by the company, the Chinese government, or the FDA. The heparin proved to have been adulterated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), and many patients who received got seriously ill or died. While there have been investigations of how the adulteration adversely affected patients, to date, there have been no publicly reported investigations of how the OSCS got into the heparin, and who should have been responsible for overseeing the purity and safety of the product. Despite the facts that clearly patients died from receiving this adulterated drug, no individual has yet suffered any negative consequence for what amounted to poisoning of patients with a brand-name but adulterated pharmaceutical product.

Here We Go Again

At the end of March, 2016, per Bloomberg,

Heparin tainted with unauthorized Chinese-made ingredients may be on the market in the U.S. and the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t moved swiftly enough to prevent it, according to a congressional probe nearly a decade after hundreds of deaths were linked to sullied batches of the blood-thinning drug.

This possible contamination is different from the earlier one, when Chinese producers made crude heparin containing a deadly chemical. They may be using cow and sheep intestines to produce the raw material for heparin that is supposed to be derived only from the intestinal membranes of pigs, according to a letter the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent Tuesday to the FDA. The agency has known about the risky practice since 2007, around the time it discovered the chemically enhanced crude heparin, the panel said.

The FDA didn’t react early on 'to credible evidence of non-porcine contamination of the Chinese heparin supply,' according to the letter, only putting out testing guidelines for pharmaceutical companies in 2012. Even after the tragedy of the chemically soiled heparin, the committee said, 'loopholes and exemptions that permit part of the Chinese drug supply chain to operate outside government scrutiny still remain.'

The committee charged that nothing much as changed since the 2008 episode of deadly heparin made from Chinese pigs

The letter from the House committee said the FDA dropped the ball on many fronts and may have allowed unsafe blood thinners to remain on the market longer than necessary. Regulators didn’t properly or widely enough share information and didn’t follow up on leads about tainted heparin from other governments, according to the letter. Agency investigators failed to inform others about dodgy crude heparin makers, the panel said. It also said the FDA didn’t follow up on concerns that heparin with the chemical was recycled after the poison was removed and may have entered the U.S. market. The claims are based on documents that Baxter, Scientific Protein and FDA provided the committee as well as interviews with FDA employees, according to footnotes in the letter.

Also, efforts to investigate the 2008 problem seem to have failed,

The chemical, oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, was connected to 246 deaths and sickened hundreds of people who took the blood-thinning medicine, the FDA said at the time. Regulators never found at what point in the chain in China that the drug, sold in the U.S. by Baxter International Inc., was corrupted. The FDA closed its initial criminal investigation after it became difficult to obtain evidence in China, though it has since re-opened a related inquiry, according to the House committee. Baxter, which recalled its heparin in 2008, hasn’t sold the anticoagulant since. It said at the time it was alarmed that the contamination appeared to have been deliberate, but had no proof of how it happened.

Now the problem appears to be more bovine. It appears that French regulators first noted the problem of imported heparin derived from Chinese cows.

The French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety called non-pig blending a 'critical' violation in an inspection report released in February. France cited China’s Dongying Tiandong Pharmaceutical Co. for making heparin with ruminant DNA, which includes cows and sheep. Dongying is registered with the FDA as a manufacturer of active ingredients and isn’t on the agency’s list of companies banned from importing to the U.S.

Yet, the FDA

considers heparin adulterated if it contains oversulfated chondroitin sulfate or non-pig material, according to an FDA document for the pharmaceutical industry on monitoring heparin quality. Material from cows could pose a risk because of possible contamination with mad cow disease.

Oddly enough, the Bloomberg article did not mention any criticism by the committee of the US based manufacturers who outsourced their heparin production to China.

Outsourcing Continues Unabated


In 2012 we noted that outsourcing by big multinational drug companies based in the US and other developed countries of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production to dubious manufacturers based in countries with much less robust regulation was continuing.  I wrote then

To put it more directly, most so called pharmaceutical companies in the US and other developed countries have outsourced the actual manufacturing of drugs. Thus, most companies that appear to be pharmaceutical manufacturing companies are really just pharmaceutical marketing and development companies. (And not so much the latter, look here:  Light DW, Lexchin JR. Pharmaceutical R&D; what do we get for all that money? Brit Med J 2012; 345: 22-25.  Link here.) Pharmaceutical companies appear to be abandoning their core essence, but are content to market drugs  under their logos without telling the patients who take them the real source of these products.  This would appear to be a big scandal, but one that stays curiously anechoic.

In 2016, outsourcing of drugs by big multinational corporations with prestigious names seems to be continuing at a rapid pace.  Per Bloomberg,

The U.S. depends heavily on China for medicine. Along with India, the country is one of the top two producers of base ingredients for drugs in the world, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

There is still no clear way for US patients or doctors to identify outsourced medicines, and efforts to better regulate them seem feeble. Thus the danger that patients may be getting ineffective, adulterated, even deadly outsourced medicine in bottles with the logos of big, famous pharmaceutical companies seems to be ongoing.

The More Things Stay the Same

In 2012, we wrote

I have yet to see any discussion with pharmaceutical executives about why their companies hardly make drugs anymore. In the absence of such discussion, I can only speculate that most likely, this is first a product of financialization. Drug company executives, like most organizational leaders, have fallen under the spell that says their only goal should be to increase short-term revenues. It may be cheaper to buy drugs from perhaps dodgy outsourced suppliers rather than manufacturing them them themselves. Continuing stories like those above, and that of the contaminated Chinese heparin suggest that these outsourced drugs are cheap for a reason. It appears that to save money short-term, pharmaceutical executives may be abandoning their most central mission, to provide pure, unadulterated drugs.

The continuing story of outsourced pharmaceutical manufacturing provides yet more evidence that current management dogma may be literally toxic. Once again, I suggest that true health care reform requires leadership of health care organization who put patients' and the public's health ahead of short-term revenue (and the personal enrichment that may result).

It is likely that a number of policy changes will be needed to reduce the threats posed by contaminated or adulterated outsourced pharmaceuticals.  There is one simple step that ought to be taken quickly to at least make the problem more transparent.  In the US, most manufactured products have a label disclosing the country of origin.  In parallel with that, all pharmaceutical containers, and all pharmaceutical labels and marketing materials ought to disclose the country in which the active pharmaceutical ingredient was manufactured, and the name and location of the company responsible for that manufacture.

There seems to be no need to rewrite or update this.

The fact that this problem has been known for 2008 year, but not clearly addressed, shows the pitiful state of American health care dysfunction.  But those with vested interests in preserving the current system remain fat and happy, like the pigs of China.

 Appendix - Heparin Case Summary

- We have posted several times, recently here about the tragic case of suddenly allergenic heparin. Although heparin, an intravenous biologic anti-coagulant, has been in use for over 70 years, serious allergic reactions to it had heretofore been rare. Starting late in 2007, hundreds of such reactions, and 21 deaths were reported in the US after intravenous heparin infusions.All the heparin related to these events in the US was made by Baxter International.

- We then learned that although the heparin carried the Baxter label, it was not really made by Baxter. The company had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from a US company, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart. (See posts here and here.)

- We found out that the Baxter International labelled heparin was contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a substance not found in nature, but which mimics heparin according to the simple laboratory tests used in the Chinese facilities to check incoming heparin. (See post here.) Further testing revealed that the contamination seemed to have taken place in China prior to the provision of the heparin to Changzhou SPL. (See post here.) It is not clear whether Baxter International or Scientific Protein Laboratories had inspected most of the steps in the supply chain, or even knew what went on there.

- The Baxter and Scientific Protein Laboratories CEOs did not seem aware of where they got the heparin on which the Baxter International label was eventually affixed. But one report in the New York Times alleged that Scientific Protein Laboratories would not pay enough for heparin to satisfy any sources other than the small "workshops."

- Leaders of all organizations involved, Baxter International, Scientific Protein Laboratories, Changzhou SPL, the Chinese government, and the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Congress assigned blame to each other, but none took individual or organizational responsibility. (See post here.)  Note that SPL was recently bought out and taken private, making its current leadership even less transparent (see post here).  A 2010 inspection of an SPL facility by the FDA revealed ongoing manufacturing problems (see post here).

- Researchers (who turned out to have financial ties to a company which is developing an anti-coagulant drug that could compete with the heparin made by Baxter International) investigated the biological mechanisms by which the contamination of the heparin lead to adverse effects, but no one investigated further how the contamination occurred, or who was responsible. (See post here.)

- Hundreds of lawsuits against Baxter have now been filed, so far without resolution. (See post here.)  Efforts to make documents to be used in these cases public so far have not succeeded (see post here).

- A government report which attracted little attention warned of the dangers of pharmaceutical ingredients made in China and subject to virtually no oversight. (See post here.)

-  Despite requests from the US, the Chinese government did not investigate the production of the heparin that lead to the deaths (see post here.)

-  In February, 2011, a congressional investigation of the case was announced, but results were unavailable until now (see above)

-  In June, 2011, a jury returned the first verdict in a civil case about the contaminated heparin, awarding money from Baxter International and Scientific Protein Laboratories to the estate of a man who apparently died due to tainted heparin (see post here).

Who Really Makes Brand-Name Pharmaceuticals?

A striking illustration of the hazards to patients' and the public's health from health care organizational leaders using fashionable management techniques to maximize short-term revenue appeared in Reuters. 

Background: The Contaminated Heparin from China

The particular issue got public notice after US patients started to get sick and die after being infused with heparin, the common anti-coagulant drug. As we have discussed repeatedly starting in 2008 (look here, and see the summary at the end of the post), Baxter International was selling contaminated heparin under its label which was made in unregulated workshops in China, and then transmitted through a complex chain of Chinese and US companies.  What helped to further obscure the problem was what Baxter was buying was called the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), which actualy means it was buying the active drug from poorly documented foreign sources.  In other words, it had entirely outsourced the manufacturing of a drug it sold as if it had been made by Baxter in the US.

Continued Outsourcing to Questionable Drug Manufacturers

Reuters reported on a new investigation of outsourcing of drug manufacturing to China.  The main point was:

Four years ago, Beijing promised to clean up its act following the deaths of at least 149 Americans who received contaminated Chinese supplies of the blood-thinner heparin. But an examination by Reuters has found that unregulated Chinese chemical companies making active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) are still selling their products on the open market with few or no checks.

Interviews with more than a dozen API producers and brokers indicate drug ingredients are entering the global supply chain after being made with no oversight from China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), and with no Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification, an internationally recognized standard of quality assurance.

'There is falsification of APIs going on, we know it,' said Lembit Rago, coordinator for Quality Assurance and Safety in Medicines with the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In fact, the article made the point that the majority of drugs sold worldwide are the product of outsourced, often unregulated, and potentially contaminated and adulterated manufacturing:

'Illegal ingredients in bulk are a big problem, but nobody talks about it,' said Guy Villax, chief executive of Hovione, an API supplier based in Portugal with factories there and in China, the United States and Ireland.

About 70 to 80 percent of all active drug ingredients - the biologically active component in medicines - originate in China and India, estimate industry experts, with China accounting for the lion's share. Its export market in these products is worth $22 billion in annual sales, according to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products.

'If China for some reason decided to stop exporting APIs, within three months all our pharmacies would be empty,' said Villax.

How Dodgy Manufacturers Continue to Operate

Apparently, a particular problem in China is that APIs, that is, the particular drugs in question, can be made by chemical as opposed to officially designated "pharmaceutical" companies, and these chemical companies are not regulated,

A key regulatory weakness in China is the distinction between pharmaceutical and chemical companies. While the former are regulated by the SFDA, the latter, making everything from sweeteners to solvents, are not. Yet many chemical companies also churn out drug ingredients, exploiting a loophole by describing the products as chemicals, which they are, rather than the more specific designation of APIs.

For example, the article recounted how an unregulated chemical company was apparently a source for a well-known branded pharmaceutical sold by two big pharmaceutical companies headquartered in developed countries,

[A]company, Jinan Hongfangde Pharmatech (JHP), of Jinan city in Shandong province, had a product list showing at least five patented products for sale. They included tiotropium bromide, a blockbuster lung drug co-promoted by Boehringer-Ingelheim and Pfizer Inc and sold under the name Spiriva,...

Both Boehringer-Ingelheim and Pfizer spokespeople claimed that they only bought drugs from known sources, but then it would be pointless for Jinan Hongfangde Pharmatech to manufacture tiotropium bromide.

The Use of Brokers

More questions were raised by the pharmaceutical company's apparently common practice of buying drugs through brokers,

The rise of the Internet has facilitated exports of drug ingredients. An online search brings up websites offering hundreds of Chinese API sellers. Those not GMP-certified or SFDA-registered are not necessarily substandard, but buyers lack independent quality assurance.

The pervasive presence of brokers in the supply line is another risk. Pharmaceutical companies looking to source APIs in China typically hire middlemen to help them navigate the language, red tape and protocol. That system helps Chinese companies making substandard APIs avoid detection.

The reason corporate executives choose to buy drugs in China rather than having their companies manufacture them themselves seems to be to reduce costs. A post on the In-Pharma blog quoted Lembit Rago, the same WHO official quoted by Reuters, thus,

There are Chinese manufacturers supplying APIs of high quality to multinational companies, but there are also companies producing APIs of poor or not defined quality.

So,

As long as there are customers for substandard APIs they will be produced and sold.

The cheapest Chinese drugs, of course, come from the most questionable manufacturers, and that may not be apparent to companies who use brokers to facilitate purchases.

'Any number of foreign pharmaceutical companies go no further than looking for API suppliers at CPhI (an international pharmaceutical fair) based only on price,' [manaing director of Samsara Biopharma Consulting Robert] Walsh said.

Reuters spoke to brokers who said an API made by an unregulated chemical company would cost less than one from a company that had a GMP certificate.

'Different (API) grades have different prices. Sometimes we accept an order sheet and we happen to find a factory that can do it cheaper than our factory, we will outsource to them and make a bigger margin,' said one broker based in China who sources for a South African outsourcing firm.

In China there are few legal repercussions for broker firms who relabel or misrepresent products, and tracing counterfeit and substandard APIs is extremely difficult.

'There are a lot of brokers who are relabeling (APIs) which means you can't trace where the API comes from and that adds to the risk,' said the WHO's quality assurance expert Rago.

Andre, the Belgian drug detective, estimates he has uncovered fraud or misrepresentations in as many as 25 percent of cases where he has been hired to audit factories all over China. 'If you can substitute an API that is expensive to make and manufactured at a high level with something that costs much less, then that can happen,' Andre said. 'It's impossible to give an exact number, but it's not rare. It's a minority, but not tiny minority.'

Use of Substandard Raw Materials

Meanwhile, a post on PharmaLot suggested that the supposedly regulated Chinese "pharmaceutical" companies may implement questionable manufacturing practices,

A subsidiary of the Joincare Pharmaceutical Group reportedly used reprocessed cooking oil – otherwise known as ‘gutter’ oil – to make a widely used antibiotic in China. If the term gutter oil is unfamiliar, this refers to reprocessed oil made from kitchen waste dredged from gutters behind restaurants. The State Food and Drug Administration is now investigating the charge after media reports over the past several days, China Daily reports.

Why might gutter oil be purchased to produce antibiotics? The oil is cheaper than the more expensive soybean oil used to make 7-aminocephalosporinic acid, or 7-ACA, a chemical for produce cephalosporins. Joincare produces 25 percent of the total amount of the chemical, although up to a dozen other drugmakers may have purchased gutter oil from various suppliers, according to various Chinese media reports. For its part, Joincare reportedly denied using gutter oil.

The companies reportedly bought the recycled cooking oil from a company called Huikang Grease Co., which is facing prosecution over its alleged processing and selling of thousands of tons of gutter oil in 2010 and 2011. The Shanghai Daily reported that Huikang received around $22.5 million for roughly 14,700 tons of gutter oil sold to Jiaozuo Joincare Biological Product, a unit of Joincare.

Summary

There is increasing evidence that a substantial proportion, probably the majority of drugs sold by big pharmaceutical companies based in developed countries were actually made by often poorly regulated firms based elsewhere, often China or India. To put it more directly, most so called pharmaceutical companies in the US and other developed countries have outsourced the actual manufacturing of drugs. Thus, most companies that appear to be pharmaceutical manufacturing companies are really just pharmaceutical marketing and development companies. (And not so much the latter, look here:  Light DW, Lexchin JR. Pharmaceutical R&D; what do we get for all that money? Brit Med J 2012; 345: 22-25.  Link here.) Pharmaceutical companies appear to be abandoning their core essence, but are content to market drugs  under their logos without telling the patients who take them the real source of these products.  This would appear to be a big scandal, but one that stays curiously anechoic.

I have yet to see any discussion with pharmaceutical executives about why their companies hardly make drugs anymore. In the absence of such discussion, I can only speculate that most likely, this is first a product of financialization. Drug company executives, like most organizational leaders, have fallen under the spell that says their only goal should be to increase short-term revenues. It may be cheaper to buy drugs from perhaps dodgy outsourced suppliers rather than manufacturing them them themselves. Continuing stories like those above, and that of the contaminated Chinese heparin suggest that these outsourced drugs are cheap for a reason. It appears that to save money short-term, pharmaceutical executives may be abandoning their most central mission, to provide pure, unadulterated drugs.

The continuing story of outsourced pharmaceutical manufacturing provides yet more evidence that current management dogma may be literally toxic. Once again, I suggest that true health care reform requires leadership of health care organization who put patients' and the public's health ahead of short-term revenue (and the personal enrichment that may result).

It is likely that a number of policy changes will be needed to reduce the threats posed by contaminated or adulterated outsourced pharmaceuticals.  There is one simple step that ought to be taken quickly to at least make the problem more transparent.  In the US, most manufactured products have a label disclosing the country of origin.  In parallel with that, all pharmaceutical containers, and all pharmaceutical labels and marketing materials ought to disclose the country in which the active pharmaceutical ingredient was manufactured, and the name and location of the company responsible for that manufacture. 


Appendix - Heparin Case Summary

- We have posted several times, recently here about the tragic case of suddenly allergenic heparin. Although heparin, an intravenous biologic anti-coagulant, has been in use for over 70 years, serious allergic reactions to it had heretofore been rare. Starting late in 2007, hundreds of such reactions, and 21 deaths were reported in the US after intravenous heparin infusions.All the heparin related to these events in the US was made by Baxter International.

- We then learned that although the heparin carried the Baxter label, it was not really made by Baxter. The company had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from a US company, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart. (See posts here and here.)

- We found out that the Baxter International labelled heparin was contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a substance not found in nature, but which mimics heparin according to the simple laboratory tests used in the Chinese facilities to check incoming heparin. (See post here.) Further testing revealed that the contamination seemed to have taken place in China prior to the provision of the heparin to Changzhou SPL. (See post here.) It is not clear whether Baxter International or Scientific Protein Laboratories had inspected most of the steps in the supply chain, or even knew what went on there.

- The Baxter and Scientific Protein Laboratories CEOs did not seem aware of where they got the heparin on which the Baxter International label was eventually affixed. But one report in the New York Times alleged that Scientific Protein Laboratories would not pay enough for heparin to satisfy any sources other than the small "workshops."

- Leaders of all organizations involved, Baxter International, Scientific Protein Laboratories, Changzhou SPL, the Chinese government, and the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Congress assigned blame to each other, but none took individual or organizational responsibility. (See post here.)  Note that SPL was recently bought out and taken private, making its current leadership even less transparent (see post here).  A 2010 inspection of an SPL facility by the FDA revealed ongoing manufacturing problems (see post here).

- Researchers (who turned out to have financial ties to a company which is developing an anti-coagulant drug that could compete with the heparin made by Baxter International) investigated the biological mechanisms by which the contamination of the heparin lead to adverse effects, but no one investigated further how the contamination occurred, or who was responsible. (See post here.)

- Hundreds of lawsuits against Baxter have now been filed, so far without resolution. (See post here.)  Efforts to make documents to be used in these cases public so far have not succeeded (see post here).

- A government report which attracted little attention warned of the dangers of pharmaceutical ingredients made in China and subject to virtually no oversight. (See post here.)

-  Despite requests from the US, the Chinese government did not investigate the production of the heparin that lead to the deaths (see post here.)

-  In February, 2011, a congressional investigation of the case was announced, but results are so far unavailable (see post here.)

-  In June, 2011, a jury returned the first verdict in a civil case about the contaminated heparin, awarding money from Baxter International and Scientific Protein Laboratories to the estate of a man who apparently died due to tainted heparin (see post here).

JAMA Article Begs Key Questions About Case of Contaminated Heparin

There was a recent reminder of the case of the tainted heparin, which begged more questions than it answered.  (A case summary is appended to the end of this post, and nearly all our posts are here.)  The case is of fundamental importance because it involves the failure of pharmaceutical companies to fulfill their core mission, to supply pure, unadulterated drugs.   Three years later, how the heparin was adulterated, and who was responsible are still unknown.
JAMA just published a major news article (Kuehn BM. As production goes global, drug supply faces greater risks to safety, quality.  JAMA 2011; 306: 811-813.  Link here.) This, in turn, was based on a five page case study of the heparin incident in a report by the Pew Health Group entitled "After Heparin: Protecting Consumers from the Risk of Substandard and Counterfeit Drugs" (link here).  Reading between the lines, the Kuehn article raised several questions which it did not seek to answer, but which we have raised previously.

Why Didn't Baxter Look the Gift Horse in the Mouth?

The JAMA article noted that in general, "pharmaceutical companies are shifting the production of drugs and drug ingredients to emerging economies - primarily India and China - to save money."  [italics added for emphasis]  Also, "Many emerging economies do not have robust regulatory systems, and regulators from the United States or other countries may face hurdles in trying to oversee production in these nations."

Why were Baxter International executives not concerned about the quality of a drug offered cheaply from firms in countries with little regulatory oversight? 

Note that we have been asking versions of this question since 2008, e.g., "How hard did Baxter scrutinize the production of the drug? How hard did SPL scrutinize its production? Did Baxter, SPL and/or the FDA realize the drug was being produced in an unlicensed Chinese chemical factory which had never been inspected by the Chinese or US government? If they did, why did they accept its product? If they didn't, why didn't they know?" - from this post on February, 16, 2008.

Who Is Responsible for the Complexity and Opacity of the Out-Sourced Supply Chain?

The article stated, "In addition to becoming more global, the drug supply chain has also become more complex, .... Drug ingredients are now imported from 150 countries, and multiple suppliers, producers, and distributors may be involved in the production and import of a single drug." 

In particular, the article noted that "Baxter relied on the assessment of another company when it began receiving heparin from the plant through which the adulterated drug came."  (The nameless other company was Scientific Protein Laboratories.)  Also, it noted that the supply chain began at "the primitive workshops that extract heparin crude by cooking and drying pig intestines" and proceeded to "the companies that consolidate materials from many such workshops and sell them to the factories that produce heparin."  The article did not discuss how this particular supply chain came into existence.

Did not drug companies in developed countries, like Baxter International in this case, create these convoluted supply chains (mainly to save money, as noted above)?  If not, did they not at least enable the creation and operation of these chains by purchasing their products without asking too may questions?  In any case, the supply chain's complexity and opacity arose out of individual humans' decisions, not an act by a deity. 

Why Have no Individuals Been Held Accountable? 

The article noted that the Pew report suggested, "increasing the financial penalties and allowable prison terms for individuals and companies who violate the rules from their current maximums of $10 000 or 3 years in prison." The implication was that these penalties have proven insufficient.  However, the article failed to note that so far in the case of the tainted heparin, no such penalties have even been sought.  To my knowledge, neither Baxter International, Scientific Protein Laboratories, nor any individual who worked for them has ever been charged with any violation of "the rules" that could result in any penalty as much as "$10 000 or 3 years in prison."    I have asked repeatedly why so far there has been no obvious effort to hold any individual accountable for the contaminated heparin?  (see this post from July 19, 2010, in which I noted legal actions against doctors who implanted IUDs imported from and approved in Canada and asked, "why are we so vigorously pursuing individual doctors for an apparently technical violation of laws that did patients no apparent harm, when we are not pursuing health care corporate executives for selling adulterated drugs that likely killed patients? 

Why Are the Key Issues In This Case Still So Anechoic?

Neither the JAMA article nor the heparin case study in the underlying Pew report directly addressed these questions.  The JAMA article also omitted such details as the name of the company from which Baxter directly purchased the heparin (Scientific Protein Laboratories) and the total number of deaths that may have been related to the heparin.  (It only mentioned 3 deaths related to heparin, while the Pew Report noted the FDA got reports of 68, six more of which it allowed were "possibly caused by the adulterant, 24 were unlikely, and 35 were unassessable.")  As mentioned above, the JAMA article seemed to imply that criminal penalties have been applied to corporate executives whose companies may have profited from cheap but defective out-sourced drugs (but none have been applied in the heparin case).   Ironically, while the JAMA article identified the "culprit" for the adverse events in the heparin case, it used the word to refer to the compound that adulterated the heparin, not those who added it, or who enabled its addition. 

Summary

Thus, the public discussion in the main-stream medical media of the case of the adulterated heparin is still remarkably squeamish even three plus years after it first became public.  While the heparin case has made it into major medical journals, it still simply is not done to even publicly discuss whether the leaders of health care organizations who become rich partly as a result of decisions such as the unsupervised, uninspected, apparently barely considered out-sourcing of heparin to be accountable when these decisions turn out to have adverse effects on patients.

If we cannot even discuss the accountability of leaders of health care organizations, how can we hope to actually hold them accountable?  

To repeatedly reiterate, as long as the leaders of health care organizations are not held accountable for the results of their decisions on health care quality, cost, and access (even in such extreme quality violations as those resulting in multiple patient deaths), we can expect continuing decisions that sacrifice quality, increase costs, and worsen access, but that are in the self-interest of the people making them.


To really reform health care, we must hold health care organizations and their leaders accountable (and not blame all the problems on doctors, other health care professionals, patients, and society at large).

Case Summary

- We have posted several times, recently here about the tragic case of suddenly allergenic heparin. Although heparin, an intravenous biologic anti-coagulant, has been in use for over 70 years, serious allergic reactions to it had heretofore been rare. Starting late in 2007, hundreds of such reactions, and 21 deaths were reported in the US after intravenous heparin infusions.All the heparin related to these events in the US was made by Baxter International.


- We then learned that although the heparin carried the Baxter label, it was not really made by Baxter. The company had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from a US company, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart. (See posts here and here.)

- We found out that the Baxter International labelled heparin was contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a substance not found in nature, but which mimics heparin according to the simple laboratory tests used in the Chinese facilities to check incoming heparin. (See post here.) Further testing revealed that the contamination seemed to have taken place in China prior to the provision of the heparin to Changzhou SPL. (See post here.) It is not clear whether Baxter International or Scientific Protein Laboratories had inspected most of the steps in the supply chain, or even knew what went on there.

- The Baxter and Scientific Protein Laboratories CEOs did not seem aware of where they got the heparin on which the Baxter International label was eventually affixed. But one report in the New York Times alleged that Scientific Protein Laboratories would not pay enough for heparin to satisfy any sources other than the small "workshops."


- Leaders of all organizations involved, Baxter International, Scientific Protein Laboratories, Changzhou SPL, the Chinese government, and the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Congress assigned blame to each other, but none took individual or organizational responsibility. (See post here.)  Note that SPL was recently bought out and taken private, making its current leadership even less transparent (see post here).  A 2010 inspection of an SPL facility by the FDA revealed ongoing manufacturing problems (see post here).

- Researchers (who turned out to have financial ties to a company which is developing an anti-coagulant drug that could compete with the heparin made by Baxter International) investigated the biological mechanisms by which the contamination of the heparin lead to adverse effects, but no one investigated further how the contamination occurred, or who was responsible. (See post here.)

- Hundreds of lawsuits against Baxter have now been filed, so far without resolution. (See post here.)  Efforts to make documents to be used in these cases public so far have not succeeded (see post here).

- A government report which attracted little attention warned of the dangers of pharmaceutical ingredients made in China and subject to virtually no oversight. (See post here.)

-  Despite requests from the US, the Chinese government did not investigate the production of the heparin that lead to the deaths (see post here.)

-  In February, 2011, a congressional investigation of the case was announced, but results are so far unavailable (see post here.)

-  In June, 2011, a jury returned the first verdict in a civil case about the contaminated heparin, awarding money from Baxter International and Scientific Protein Laboratories to the estate of a man who apparently died due to tainted heparin (see post here).

The First Contaminated Heparin Case Verdict: Making Money by Giving Patients "the Cheap Stuff"

In February, 2008, we first posted about the case of the deadly adulterated heparin.  (A case summary is appended to the end of this post, and nearly all our posts are here.)  The case is of fundamental importance because it involves the failure of pharmaceutical companies to fulfill their core mission, to supply pure, unadulterated drugs.  It is also of fundamental importance because it may be about how this failure to fulfill core mission was not due to accident, or even simple incompetence, but due to putting financial goals ahead of patient safety. 

The latest event in the very slowly unfolding aftermath of this case was the first verdict against the sellers of the heparin in a civil trial in a US court room.  As reported by the Chicago Tribune,

A Cook County Circuit Court jury Thursday awarded $625,000 to the estate of a man who his attorneys say was given a dosage of a blood thinner made by Baxter International Inc. that contained a contaminated ingredient found in the company's supply chain in China.

The verdict is the first from a case against Baxter and its supplier, Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Laboratories, from hundreds of lawsuits filed against the Deerfield-based medical product giant. A mountain of litigation has been leveled against the companies after U.S. regulators determined in 2008 that Baxter's heparin was contaminated, from fake ingredients sourced in China.

A statement by the (winning) plaintiff's attorneys underscored that this case may have been about cutting costs winning out over patient safety:

'The active pharmaceutical ingredient in the contaminated heparin received by Mr. Johansen and other Americans was obtained from Baxter (and its supplier Scientific Protein Laboratories') Changzhou SPL,' Johansen estate attorneys Don Nolan of Chicago and David Zoll of Toledo, Ohio said in a statement this afternoon. 'This crude heparin was referred to in the companies' own internal records as 'the cheap stuff.' The contaminant was determined to be a man-made 'fake heparin' called over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, causing among other effects, potentially fatal allergic-like reactions.'

As explained in this post in the Postscript blog:

Baxter and its ingredient supplier, Scientific Protein Laboratories (SPL), announced in 2008 that the OSCS contaminant was introduced intentionally by their suppliers in China. Financial motives are presumed, because Heparin costs 100 times more to make than OSCS. In addition, Heparin which is harvested and purified from the intestines of pigs, was even harder to obtain in 2007-08 because a global pig disease epidemic had created an unexpected shortage in China and elsewhere.

The timing was right, and seems the chemistry was, too. The OSCS contaminant was not initially discovered because it mimics some chemical properties of Heparin, suggesting that it was introduced by suppliers in China who possessed the biochemical savvy to fool the standard chemical purity tests then in use by Baxter and the FDA. (The assay test has since been improved by the US Pharmacopeia.)

So it appeared in their haste to cut costs, Baxter International, and its US based supplier, Scientific Protein Laboratories, failed to consider that heparin chosen because it was "the cheap stuff" might not turn out to be safe. In particular, they seemed to be wilfully blind to the prospect that pushing for the cheapest price without inquiring too deeply into the details of the supply chain might tempt those down the chain to cheat, and in doing so, to disregard the safety of those patients (in another country) who would be infused with the resulting adulterated product.  This thus appears to be a vivid, and fatal case of mission-hostile management.

Meanwhile, we still await the result of the investigation that was supposed to have started in February, 2011 (see this post.)

To reiterate, as long as the leaders of health care organizations are not held accountable for the results of their decisions on health care quality, cost, and access (even in such extreme quality violations as those resulting in multiple patient deaths), we can expect continuing decisions that sacrifice quality, increase costs, and worsen access, but that are in the self-interest of the people making them.

To really reform health care, we must hold health care organizations and their leaders accountable (and not blame all the problems on doctors, other health care professionals, patients, and society at large).

Case Summary

- We have posted several times, recently here, about the tragic case of suddenly allergenic heparin. Although heparin, an intravenous biologic anti-coagulant, has been in use for over 70 years, serious allergic reactions to it had heretofore been rare. Starting late last year, hundreds of such reactions, and now 21 deaths were reported in the US after intravenous heparin infusions.All the heparin related to these events in the US was made by Baxter International.


- We then learned that although the heparin carried the Baxter label, it was not really made by Baxter. The company had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from a US company, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart.

- We found out that the Baxter International labelled heparin was contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a substance not found in nature, but which mimics heparin according to the simple laboratory tests used in the Chinese facilities to check incoming heparin. (See post here.) Further testing revealed that the contamination seemed to have taken place in China prior to the provision of the heparin to Changzhou SPL. (See post here.) It is not clear whether Baxter International or Scientific Protein Laboratories had inspected most of the steps in the supply chain, or even knew what went on there.

- The Baxter and Scientific Protein Laboratories CEOs did not seem aware of where they got the heparin on which the Baxter International label was eventually affixed. But one report in the New York Times alleged that Scientific Protein Laboratories would not pay enough for heparin to satisfy any sources other than the small "workshops."


- Leaders of all organizations involved, Baxter International, Scientific Protein Laboratories, Changzhou SPL, the Chinese government, and the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Congress assigned blame to each other, but none took individual or organizational responsibility. (See post here.)  Note that SPL was recently bought out and taken private, making its current leadership even less transparent (see post here).  A 2010 inspection of an SPL facility by the FDA revealed ongoing manufacturing problems (see post here).

- Researchers (who turned out to have financial ties to a company which is developing an anti-coagulant drug that could compete with the heparin made by Baxter International) investigated the biological mechanisms by which the contamination of the heparin lead to adverse effects, but no one investigated further how the contamination occurred, or who was responsible. (See post here.)

- Hundreds of lawsuits against Baxter have now been filed, so far without resolution. (See post here.)  Efforts to make documents to be used in these cases public so far have not succeeded (see post here).

- A government report which attracted little attention warned of the dangers of pharmaceutical ingredients made in China and subject to virtually no oversight. (See post here.)

-  Despite requests from the US, the Chinese government did not investigate the production of the heparin that lead to the deaths (see post here.)

-  In February, 2011, a congressional investigation of the case was announced, but results are so far unavailable (see post here.)

Three Years Later, A Congressional Investigation of the Deadly Adulterated Heparin

Slightly more than three years ago, we first posted about the case of the deadly adulterated heparin.  (A case summary is appended to the end of this post, and nearly all our posts are here.)  The case is of fundamental importance because it involves the failure of pharmaceutical companies to fulfill their core mission, to supply pure, unadulterated drugs.   Three years later, how the heparin was adulterated, and who was responsible are still unknown.

So now, it seems, there will actually be an official investigation.  As reported by Alicia Mundy in the Wall Street Journal,

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is conducting a formal investigation into the contaminated-heparin crisis of 2008, saying it wants regulators to figure out who was responsible for adulteration linked to 81 U.S. deaths.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), and two colleagues sent a letter Wednesday to the Food and Drug Administration asking for documents on whether the agency pursued possible culprits in China and pushed the Chinese government for more information.

'The committee is investigating the unsolved case of who contaminated the U.S. supply of heparin,' a blood thinner used by about 12 million Americans annually, said Mr. Upton, joined by Reps. Clifford Stearns (R., Fla.) and Michael Burgess (R., Texas).

Better late than never, I suppose. In March, 2008, I called the case "outrageous," and called for an investigation. You really did hear it here first on Health Care Renewal. So three years later, an investigation has actually begun.

The latest WSJ article noted:

'There is substantial public interest in solving this case' because more than 80% of the standard heparin supply in the U.S. today comes from China, the lawmakers wrote. About 16% of all pharmaceutical ingredients in the country are imported from China, they wrote.

Also,

'There is reason to believe all or some of the individuals responsible for the adulteration are still actively engaged in the Chinese pharmaceutical supply chain, and pose a continuing threat to pharmaceutical products imported to the U.S.,' the lawmakers wrote.

However, why this "substantial public interest" and the existence of "a continuing threat" did not lead to an investigation earlier is still completely obscure.

The article hinted at some partisan discord in the committee that will do the investigation:

Over the last two years, Mr. Burgess and the Energy and Commerce Committee's then-top Republican, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, pressed the FDA for information on the agency's inspections of Chinese heparin facilities and on the extent of cooperation from national and local Chinese authorities.

At the time, Republicans were in the minority. Their inquiries didn't constitute a committee investigation, and they couldn't demand nonpublic information from the FDA or call hearings. They now are in the majority and have those powers.

The implication is that the Democrats on the committee blocked the investigation. Why they would have blocked an investigation when the executive branch was in Republican hands, and why the matter could not have been investigated in another congressional committee, or by some other organization, is unknown.

So, again, better late than never. An investigation could at least be the beginnings of accountability for the very well paid pharmaceutical company leaders who up to now have denied all responsibility for failing their most important responsibility, to provide pure, unadulterated drugs.

As we have said again and again, as long as the leaders of health care organizations are not held accountable for the results of their decisions on health care quality, cost, and access (even in such extreme quality violations as those resulting in multiple patient deaths), we can expect continuing decisions that sacrifice quality, increase costs, and worsen access, but that are in the self-interest of the people making them.

To really reform health care, we must hold health care organizations and their leaders accountable (and not blame all the problems on doctors, other health care professionals, patients, and society at large).

Case Summary

- We have posted several times, recently here, about the tragic case of suddenly allergenic heparin. Although heparin, an intravenous biologic anti-coagulant, has been in use for over 70 years, serious allergic reactions to it had heretofore been rare. Starting late last year, hundreds of such reactions, and now 21 deaths were reported in the US after intravenous heparin infusions.All the heparin related to these events in the US was made by Baxter International.


- We then learned that although the heparin carried the Baxter label, it was not really made by Baxter. The company had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from a US company, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart.

- We found out that the Baxter International labelled heparin was contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a substance not found in nature, but which mimics heparin according to the simple laboratory tests used in the Chinese facilities to check incoming heparin. (See post here.) Further testing revealed that the contamination seemed to have taken place in China prior to the provision of the heparin to Changzhou SPL. (See post here.) It is not clear whether Baxter International or Scientific Protein Laboratories had inspected most of the steps in the supply chain, or even knew what went on there.

- The Baxter and Scientific Protein Laboratories CEOs did not seem aware of where they got the heparin on which the Baxter International label was eventually affixed. But one report in the New York Times alleged that Scientific Protein Laboratories would not pay enough for heparin to satisfy any sources other than the small "workshops."


- Leaders of all organizations involved, Baxter International, Scientific Protein Laboratories, Changzhou SPL, the Chinese government, and the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Congress assigned blame to each other, but none took individual or organizational responsibility. (See post here.)  Note that SPL was recently bought out and taken private, making its current leadership even less transparent (see post here).  A 2010 inspection of an SPL facility by the FDA revealed ongoing manufacturing problems (see post here).

- Researchers (who turned out to have financial ties to a company which is developing an anti-coagulant drug that could compete with the heparin made by Baxter International) investigated the biological mechanisms by which the contamination of the heparin lead to adverse effects, but no one investigated further how the contamination occurred, or who was responsible. (See post here.)

- Hundreds of lawsuits against Baxter have now been filed, so far without resolution. (See post here.)  Efforts to make documents to be used in these cases public so far have not succeeded (see post here).

- A government report which attracted little attention warned of the dangers of pharmaceutical ingredients made in China and subject to virtually no oversight. (See post here.)

-  Despite requests from the US, the Chinese government did not investigate the production of the heparin that lead to the deaths (see post here.)

Hat tip to the Postscript blog.

FDA to Scientific Protein Laboratories Managerement: "We Are Concerned About Your Fundamental Understanding"

Per Ed Silverman on the Pharmalot blog, we hear of new concerns about a company in the supply chain that ended up with adulterated heparin and dead patients.  Before summarizing what the blog reported, let me summarize the case again.

Case Summary

- We have posted several times, recently here, about the tragic case of suddenly allergenic heparin. Although heparin, an intravenous biologic anti-coagulant, has been in use for over 70 years, serious allergic reactions to it had heretofore been rare. Starting in 2008, hundreds of such reactions, and now over 80 deaths were reported in the US after intravenous heparin infusions.All the heparin related to these events in the US was sold by Baxter International.
- We then learned that although the heparin carried the Baxter label, it was not really made by Baxter. The company had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from a US company, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart.
- The heparin proved to have been adulterated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), and many patients who received got seriously ill or died. While there have been investigations of how the adulteration adversely affected patients, to date, there have been no publicly reported investigations of how the OSCS got into the heparin, and who should have been responsible for overseeing the purity and safety of the product. Despite the facts that clearly patients died from receiving this adulterated drug, no individual has yet suffered any negative consequence for what amounted to poisoning of patients with a brand-name but adulterated pharmaceutical product.  (For a more detailed summary of the case, look here, and for all our posts on this topic, look here.)

The FDA Letter

Pharmalot reported that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter dated January 20, 2011, to Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, and provided a link to the letter. 

The letter identified continuing serious problems with Scientific Protein Laboratories' operations:

During our July 28, 2010 - September 3, 2010, inspection of your active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facility, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, located at 700 E. Main Street, Waunakee, WI, investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) identified significant deviations from Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) for the manufacture of drugs. These deviations cause your drugs to be adulterated within the meaning of section 501(a)(2)(B) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 351(a)(2)(B)] in that the methods used in, or the facilities or controls used for, their manufacture, processing, packing, or holding do not conform to, or are not operated or administered in conformity with CGMP.

The firm failed to adequately respond to complaints about its products, including heparin:

Failure to investigate all quality related complaints whether received orally or in writing according to a written procedure.

For example, your firm failed to conduct a formal investigation concerning a complaint identifying potential contamination with Oversulfated Chondroitin Sulfate (OSCS) in a lot of Heparin Sodium USP (lot 1035-0778) on October 9, 2008. Your firm did not initiate a formal investigation until September 9, 2009. In addition, at that time, your firm failed to extend your investigations to other lots of Heparin Sodium USP manufactured using the same crude lot identified with OSCS contamination. Your investigation did not consider the other lot of Heparin Sodium USP that was associated with the same contaminated crude lot until May 26, 2010, eight months after initiating a formal investigation (i.e., lot 1035-0780, which tested negative for OSCS in June 2010). We acknowledge that you initiated a voluntary recall of Heparin Sodium USP that included lots 1035-0778 and 1035-0780 on October 13, 2010.

In your response, your firm notes that you have revised your procedure to state, “Any SPL employee will inform QA of a customer complaint.” However, this response does not address the fundamental issues that allowed the delays in communications and investigation to occur. Your handling of the heparin contamination complaint suggests the need to evaluate training across all departments about the types of information requiring prompt reporting to the quality unit. Further, your response does not address how you will ensure that complaint investigations are handled in a timely manner.

Also, the firm still had problems overseeing the work of companies that supplied it:

Your firm failed to properly evaluate a contract laboratory to ensure GMP compliance of operations occurring at the contract site

Furthermore, it did not use the proper equipment:

Failure to have equipment for the manufacture of APIs of appropriate design for its intended use.

The FDA seemed concerned that company management did not understand its responsibilities:

The manner in which you addressed this problem [the contamination of the heparin] is very worrisome with respect to the timeliness of the investigation, the identification of all potentially affected drugs, and implementing appropriate actions to resolve these issues. Be advised that your firm has the responsibility to ensure the quality, safety, and integrity of its drugs. FDA expects that your corporate management will immediately undertake a comprehensive evaluation of your quality system to ensure comprehensive compliance with CGMP.

In addition,

However, we are concerned about your firm’s fundamental understanding of what is required by your Quality Unit and the regulatory expectations for a firm that enters into agreements with contract testing laboratories. Although you have agreements with other firms that may delineate specific responsibilities to each party, you are ultimately responsible for the quality of your products and the reliability of test results. Regardless of who tests your products or the agreements in place, you are required to manufacture these products in accordance with section 501(a)(2)(B) of the Act to assure their identity, strength, quality, purity, and safety.

Summary

In previous discussions of the case of the adulterated heparin I speculated about reasons that the current leaders of health care corporations may have abandoned their most fundamental responsibilities, for example:

I submit that corporate cultures increasingly influenced by the arrogant, greedy, amoral leadership of the financial services industry that lead us to the brink of another depression are also leading us to the brink of a poisonous era in health care. Corporate leaders intent on cutting costs, and paying themselves as much of the resulting proceeds as possible, may see quality and safety as just another cost cutting target. Corporate leaders brought up in the culture of finance, but untrained and inexperienced in engineering, science, and medicine find it all too easy to ignore quality and safety and focus on the bottom line.

The FDA letter to Scientific Protein Laboratories seems to confirm my fear that leaders of health care corporations no longer seem to understand their most elementary responsibilities for providing safe products, in this case, pure, unadulterated drugs. It did not speak to why that may be the case, but certainly does not contradict my theory above.

The letter provides some reassurance that the FDA, at least, has not forgotten the case of the adulterated heparin. However, despite the number of deaths involved, this case has been relatively anechoic, and never fully investigated.

So here I go again: as long as the leaders of health care organizations are not held accountable for the results of their decisions on health care quality, cost, and access (even in such extreme quality violations as those resulting in multiple patient deaths), we can expect continuing decisions that sacrifice quality, increase costs, and worsen access, but that are in the self-interest of the people making them.


To really reform health care, we must hold health care organizations and their leaders accountable (and not blame all the problems on doctors, other health care professionals, patients, and society at large).

"Unreasonably Dangerous" Heparin

It is time for an update on the case of the deadly contaminated heparin sold by Baxter International, which has received much less attention than seems warranted given its human costs (81 lives).  How the heparin was contaminated, and how the contaminated heparin ended up being sold as a US Food and Drug Administration approved American product are still unknown.  Despite the fact that the outcome of this case were so bad, it received disproportionately little attention when it was first made public, and now seems to have become nearly anechoic.

Case Summary 

Baxter International imported the "active pharmaceutical ingredient" (API) of heparin, that is, in plainer language, the drug itself, from China. That API was then sold, with some minor processing, as a Baxter International product with a Baxter International label. The drug came from a sketchy supply chain that Baxter did not directly supervise, apparently originating in small "workshops" operating under primitive and unsanitary conditions without any meaningful inspection or supervision by the company, the Chinese government, or the FDA. The heparin proved to have been adulterated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), and many patients who received got seriously ill or died. While there have been investigations of how the adulteration adversely affected patients, to date, there have been no publicly reported investigations of how the OSCS got into the heparin, and who should have been responsible for overseeing the purity and safety of the product. Despite the facts that clearly patients died from receiving this adulterated drug, no individual has yet suffered any negative consequence for what amounted to poisoning of patients with a brand-name but adulterated pharmaceutical product.  (For a more detailed summary of the case, look here, and for all our posts on this topic, look here.)

Civil Cases Plod Forward
If there is any ongoing official investigation of this case, it has not been made public.  Civil cases filed by patients allegedly injured by the heparin, or by relatives of patients who died allegedly from the heparin, seem to be proceeding at a glacial pace.  However, there is one development in one set of civil cases worthy of note.  As reported two weeks ago by Alicia Mundy in the Wall Street Journal:

A state court in Illinois has granted a partial summary judgment to two plaintiffs suing Baxter International Inc. over contaminated blood thinner, saying that some of the company's heparin was 'unreasonably dangerous.'

The suit involves tainted imported heparin ingredients from China that caused a public health crisis in 2008, and were linked to more than 80 deaths in the U.S. and many other serious allergic reactions.

Some 300 cases nationwide against Baxter and its main ingredient supplier, Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC, were consolidated in Chicago in Cook County Circuit Court.

Both companies have said that they weren't negligent and weren't responsible for the deadly reactions among patients.

The Illinois judge's ruling, dated Wednesday, involved a motion for partial summary judgment that named only Baxter. The motion was filed on behalf of two plaintiffs in the consolidated cases, one of whom died.

The ruling cites statements by Baxter's corporate quality vice president and the president of the company's medication delivery division that the heparin was defective.

Baxter argued in its defense that a jury should address the question of whether a product is 'unreasonably dangerous.' The company noted that the two Baxter executives who agreed in depositions that the heparin was defective aren't doctors or scientists. However, Judge Jennifer Duncan-Brice wrote that the issue before her wasn't whether heparin actually caused the death or injury to the plaintiffs, but just whether the product was, as a matter of fact, contaminated.

The most basic responsibility of a pharmaceutical company is to produce pure, unadulterated product.  As the current director of the US Food and Drug Administration wrote in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, the agency's "modern regulatory functions began with the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act, a law, more than a quarter of a century in the making, that prohibited interstate commerce in adulterated and misbranded food and drugs."  However, in the 21st century, drug companies are increasingly failing to produce unadulterated products, and the FDA is having increasing difficulty assuring patients that the drugs they take meet even the most basic safety standards. 

I submit that corporate cultures increasingly influenced by the arrogant, greedy, amoral leadership of the financial services industry that lead us to the brink of another depression are also leading us to the brink of a poisonous era in health care.  Corporate leaders intent on cutting costs, and paying themselves as much of the resulting proceeds as possible, may see quality and safety as just another cost cutting target.  Corporate leaders brought up in the culture of finance, but untrained and inexperienced in engineering, science, and medicine find it all too easy to ignore quality and safety and focus on the bottom line.  (It is ironic that in the quote above, Baxter International's attorneys made light of the judgments of the company's own executives because they are not physicians or scientists.)

Meanwhile, society seems to have been so mesmerized by the mantra that laissez faire capitalism will lead to miraculous "innovation" that we do not even attend to instances in which it lead instead to death.

As we have said until being blue in the face, as long as the leaders of health care organizations are not held accountable for the results of their decisions on health care quality, cost, and access (even in such extreme quality violations as those resulting in multiple patient deaths), we can expect continuing decisions that sacrifice quality, increase costs, and worsen access, but that are in the self-interest of the people making them.


To really reform health care, we must hold health care organizations and their leaders accountable (and not blame all the problems on doctors, other health care professionals, patients, and society at large).

More Contaminated Heparin, But Who Leads the Company Who Supplied It?

We have posted multiple times over the last two years about the deadly contaminated heparin from China. (See the case summary and link at the end of this post.)

One of the key players in this case was a company called Scientific Protein Laboratories (SPL). The company that sold the heparin in the US under its logo, Baxter International, had outsourced production of the active ingredient to a long, and ultimately mysterious supply chain. Baxter got the active ingredient from Scientific Protein Laboratories, which in turn obtained it from a factory in China operated by Changzhou SPL, which in turn was owned by Scientific Protein Laboratories and by Changzhou Techpool Pharmaceutical Co. Changzhou SPL, in turn, got it from several consolidators or wholesalers, who in turn got it from numerous small, unidentified "workshops," which seemed to produce the product in often primitive and unsanitary conditions. None of the stops in the Chinese supply chain had apparently been inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration nor its Chinese counterpart.

Even More Contaminated Heparin?

Now it looks like SPL may have sold contaminated heparin elsewhere, after the above story of the contaminated heparin sold by Baxter became public, as reported by Alicia Mundy in the Wall Street Journal:

A major U.S. heparin wholesaler received a complaint from a corporate customer about a contaminated batch of blood thinner in October 2008, but didn't investigate for almost a year, according to a recent Food and Drug Administration notice to the company.

Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC got the customer complaint months after the FDA announced nationwide recalls of many heparin products.

In more detail,

In a report last month, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the FDA told SPL that it 'did not adequately investigate a complaint that affected product quality.' The report said SPL didn't begin a probe of the contamination complaint until September 2009, and failed to investigate 'other lots of heparin that may have been associated with the complaint.'

The FDA said Wednesday it cited SPL for 'violations of current good manufacturing practice' and is still investigating. 'FDA believes the issue does not present a significant public-health risk,' it said. An FDA spokeswoman said the batch in question never reached patients.

After SPL looked into the October 2008 complaint, it found that the contaminated raw material was used in two processed batches of heparin , the FDA report said. SPL ended its review of one batch in June 2010. It didn't investigate the second, the FDA said.

It looked like this instance of contaminated heparin did not pose a public health hazard because the company to whom it was shipped, possibly alerted by the case above, tested and rejected the SPL heparin

SPL said Wednesday the heparin lots in question 'passed all the then-required, state-of-the-art testing' to detect contamination, however trace amounts of contaminant, oversulfated chrondroitin sulfate, were found by a customer using their own specialized testing. The company also said no adverse events were reported involving the batch in question. [Ed - apparently because the buyer realized the problem and never used the batch in its products that were provided to the public.]

So even after the whole problem of oversulfated chrondroitin sulfate contaminated heparin had become a public scandal, the company that passed along the heparin that became subject of that scandal had "state-of-the-art testing" that could not adequately detect that specific contaminant, although the company to whom it sold the heparin apparently was able to test for it.

Providing pure, unadulterated products is the most elementary responsibility of drug companies. The US Food and Drug Administration was set up mainly to ensure the purity of drugs (and only later, to ensure their effectiveness and then safety). Yet some US companies have proven unable to assure the purity of their products. (For another prominent case, go here.)  Now we have an instance in which a company still seemed unable to check their products for impurities even after they knew dangerous impurities could be present and had been present in other batches of the products they sold, and even after other companies had figured out how to perform such checks.

As we have said before, seemingly infinitum, if we want a health care system that provides good quality, affordable, accessible care, we need health care leaders who put the wellbeing of patients ahead of their own pocketbooks, and to hold them accountable for doing so.

Holding Leaders Accountable, If Only One Could Find Them

By the way, this case further illustrates how far from that ideal we are, because it is not even obvious who the leaders of SPL who ought to be held so accountable actually are.  The SPL web-site says nothing about corporate governance or leadership. 

After some Google searching, it turns out that the reason for this is that SPL was bought out by private equity firm American Capital Strategies Ltd in 2006, two years before the contaminated heparin scandal became manifest.  Although American Capital Strategies Ltd is publicly traded, its 2010 proxy statement and most recent publicly available annual report (of 2008) say almost nothing about SPL.  Private equity firms are known for acquiring troubled companies and trying to turn quick profits from them, often from stringent cost-cutting and selling off assets.  They are not particularly known for their devotion to better patient care.  None of the top executives and directors of American Capital Strategies Ltd seem to have health care backgrounds or experience or any other reason to sympathize with the core values of health care professionals.

Further Google searching did suggest that the CEO of SPL is one David G Strunce, but revealed little biographical information about him.  How he and other executives of that company might better be held accountable is not obvious.

So what will it take to get the leaders of pharmaceutical companies to take their responsibility to provide pure, unadulterated drugs more seriously? How will society be able to better hold those leaders accountable?  How can we get leaders of health care to put the health of the people ahead of their own financial returns? 

The case of the adulterated heparin suggests these questions will not be easily answered.

Case Summary

In summary, Baxter International imported the "active pharmaceutical ingredient" (API) of heparin, that is, in plainer language, the drug itself, from China. That API was then sold, with some minor processing, as a Baxter International product with a Baxter International label. The drug came from a sketchy supply chain that Baxter did not directly supervise, apparently originating in small "workshops" operating under primitive and unsanitary conditions without any meaningful inspection or supervision by the company, the Chinese government, or the FDA. The heparin proved to have been adulterated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), and many patients who received got seriously ill or died. While there have been investigations of how the adulteration adversely affected patients, to date, there have been no publicly reported investigations of how the OSCS got into the heparin, and who should have been responsible for overseeing the purity and safety of the product. Despite the facts that clearly patients died from receiving this adulterated drug, no individual has yet suffered any negative consequence for what amounted to poisoning of patients with a brand-name but adulterated pharmaceutical product.



(For a more detailed summary of the case, look here.)