China's State Food and Drug Administration has exposed 25 websites that have been involved in illegal selling of medicines.
These websites include the fake websites of the Diabetes Treatment Center of China TCM Higher Medical Institute, the Diabetes Treatment Center of Chinese Herbal Medicine Research Institute, China Diabetes Recovery Website, International Beijing Chinese Herbal Medicine Diabetes Research Center, Beijing Chinese Herbal Medicine Research Institute Liver Disease Recovery Center, the fake Chinese PLA 301 Hospital, China Chinese Medicine Research Institute, China Chinese Medicine Research Institute High Blood Pressure Research Center, State Dermatosis Clinic Study Institute and China Chinese Medicine Difficulty and Complicated Disease Research Center.
According to Zhang Jingli, deputy director of SFDA, these websites have fabricated medical institution names to release fake medicine information and sell fake drugs. Zhang says that SFDA will soon work with the Ministry of Information Industry to check and punish them.
By the end of 2007, China had approved a total of 1257 websites to provide online medicine services and 14 websites to deal with online drug sales. Of those, only seven websites are allowed to sell non-prescription medicines to consumers. Zhang says that consumers can log onto the official website of SFDA to confirm the qualification of those websites and they can report to the local food and drug department once they've found some illegal sellers.
