Illegal addition of western medicine to Chinese patent medicine is harmful and deadly. ＂Tangzhining＂ rings the alarm bell.

　　On January 17th and 19th, two patients in Xinjiang died after taking Tangzhining Capsule (batch number "081101") labeled "Guangxi Pingnan Pharmaceutical Factory". After investigation, the "Tangzhining Capsule" that caused the patient’s death was a counterfeit drug, and the chemical component "glibenclamide" was illegally added. According to industry analysts, patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are huge, which has become a "gold mine" for many black-hearted drug dealers to make money. Some products advertised as pure Chinese medicine have illegally mixed western medicine ingredients, or added pharmaceutical ingredients to health foods, which is harmful to patients’ health. This has also become a focus of supervision by law enforcement departments in various places, including Guangdong Province.

　　Three chemical components are often illegally added.

　　According to reports, although the current medical level has made rapid progress, there is no major breakthrough in some difficult diseases, such as diabetes, chronic hepatitis, malignant tumors, etc., and neither traditional Chinese medicine nor western medicine can achieve a complete cure. Wei Hua, deputy director of the Department of Endocrinology, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said that as far as Chinese medicine is concerned, its composition is complex and its effect is mild and slow, while western medicine has continuously developed some chemical drugs which are more effective, but its side effects are relatively large. In this regard, some lawless people, taking advantage of the psychological trust of patients in traditional Chinese medicine, promote so-called pure Chinese medicine and health food, and secretly add western medicine chemical components to them, so that patients feel obvious curative effect after taking it, thus increasing sales. For example, the "Tangzhining Capsule" that went wrong this time is under the banner of Chinese patent medicine.

　　Wei Hua said that in addition to the glibenclamide added in the "Tangzhining Capsule" that went wrong this time, gliclazide and glipizide are the most commonly added hypoglycemic western medicine ingredients in those illegal products. According to the relevant regulations, chemical substances are not allowed to be added to traditional Chinese medicine. "Glibenclamide" has a strong hypoglycemic effect, and its pharmacological function is to promote insulin secretion and improve human insulin deficiency through metabolism after entering the blood. However, serious overdose may cause shock and even death.

　　It is understood that the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Institute for Drug Inspection found that the drugs taken by the deceased during his lifetime contained about 10.33 mg of "glibenclamide" per pill. "Glibenclamide" is a second-generation sulfonylurea, which has a strong hypoglycemic effect, but adults should not take more than l5 mg per day, otherwise it will endanger the life safety of users. According to the instructions of the seized drugs, the normal dosage is 9 capsules per day, which has exceeded the maximum daily dosage by 6 times.

　　You can’t add western medicine to Chinese medicine at random.

　　A person in charge of a pharmaceutical factory told reporters that the incident was not accidental, and illegal drugs, health foods, western medicines and illegal propaganda occurred from time to time. According to National Medical Products Administration, they found that it is not uncommon to add sildenafil, a component of Viagra, to the "pure Chinese medicine" for treating male sexual dysfunction, and to add thyroid hormone to diet food, which can cause hyperthyroidism, so that patients who don’t know the truth suffer from side effects of drugs for no reason. This exposes a problem: most Chinese people believe that "natural drugs" have the advantages of low toxicity and side effects, and it is inevitable that they are not alert to side effects such as dependence.

　　Wang Dahong, Secretary-General of the Market Working Committee of China Health Food Association, said that illegal addition of western medicine ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine or chemical ingredients in health food will do great harm to patients and should not be added indiscriminately. Doctors and patients use mixed Chinese and western medicines without knowing it, which can easily lead to repeated adverse drug reactions. For example, if diabetic patients don’t know that the Chinese patent medicine for lowering blood sugar is added with glibenclamide, they mistakenly think it is a "Chinese medicine with no toxic and side effects" and take it in excess, or take the western medicine for lowering blood sugar at the same time for "integrated Chinese and western medicine treatment", which will lead to overdose of hypoglycemic drugs and hypoglycemia, and even lead to blood sugar fluctuation of patients if they stop taking the medicine suddenly. Therefore, Wang Dahong said that the timely discovery and investigation of the problem "Tangzhining Capsule" has eliminated another safety hazard that harms consumers’ health, and the industry has been further eliminated.

　　Illegal addition has four characteristics.

　　Most Chinese patent medicines or health foods illegally added with western medicine ingredients have the following characteristics: First, they claim that they can cure or greatly improve certain diseases in a short period of time, and their efficacy is remarkable. Second, most drugs are sold through online advertisements, mail advertisements or health knowledge lectures. Third, most drugs or health care products are covered with legal coats. Some products are pure Chinese medicine ingredients when applying for batch number, but western medicine ingredients are added during production. Fourth, the means of addition is very secret. Knowing that the routine drug testing only examines the internal substances of drugs, criminals add western medicine ingredients to the external carriers of drugs such as capsule shell. Finally, it is suggested that consumers can check the authenticity of drugs through the official website of the State Food and Drug Administration.

　　-Medical files

　　glibenclamide

　　Glibenclamide, alias glibenclamide, Daanning, etc., is a prescription drug and must be taken under the guidance of a doctor. It is an islet hormone and a drug that affect blood sugar, and can be used to treat mild and moderate non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus with unsatisfactory therapeutic effect only by diet control, but the patient’s islet β cells need to have certain insulin secretion function without serious complications, such as diarrhea, nausea, headache, stomachache, liver function damage, thrombocytopenia and other adverse symptoms. If you take glibenclamide in large quantities for a long time, it will eventually lead to hypoglycemia, nephropathy and even death.

　　-Related links

　　Which drugs illegally add glibenclamide?

　　According to experts, in the drug treatment of diabetes, except insulin, most of them are oral drugs. Oral hypoglycemic drugs are usually divided into three categories: western medicine hypoglycemic drugs, pure Chinese medicine hypoglycemic drugs and Chinese and Western medicine hypoglycemic drugs. Generally, pure Chinese medicine has weak hypoglycemic effect, slow onset and high safety. Western medicine hypoglycemic agents take effect quickly and have great toxic and side effects. The combination of Chinese and western hypoglycemic agents is based on the pure traditional Chinese medicine hypoglycemic agents, and incorporates the ingredients of western medicine hypoglycemic agents, which not only has the advantages of rapid hypoglycemic effect of western medicine, but also has the advantages of high safety of traditional Chinese medicine. According to the person in charge of the provincial drug evaluation center, at present, only three kinds of oral hypoglycemic drugs, such as Yikai Xiaoke Pill, are officially registered in China. It is not the first time to illegally add glibenclamide. In 2005, the Ministry of Health investigated and dealt with two cases-

　　○ On June 15th, 2005, the Ministry of Health issued a notice, requiring all localities to investigate and deal with some batch numbers of "Ku Le Kang Capsule" produced by Liaoning Healthy Weiye Biotechnology Co., Ltd.. The Ministry of Health pointed out that when the relevant departments of Jilin Province supervised and inspected the health food "Ku Le Kang" capsules (approval number: Wei Shi Jian Zi [2002] No.0588) produced by Liaoning Health Weiye Biotechnology Co., Ltd., they found that the products marked with certain batch numbers contained chemical drugs. The capsule shells of samples with batch numbers of 20041201 (not for sale), 20040902 and 20041201 contain the chemical drug glibenclamide, and the capsule contents with batch number of 20050401 contain the chemical drug gliclazide.

　　○ On October 9, 2005, Jiangxi Food and Drug Administration announced that the law enforcement officers of Nanchang Food and Drug Administration had tested the drug "Tangbikang Jiangtangning Capsule" labeled as batch number 20050403082 produced by Jilin Shenhui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.: glibenclamide was illegally added to this Chinese patent medicine. (Reporter Roger Lee)

Editor: Liu Li