CCTV News:On February 19th, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, State Administration of Market Supervision and National Medical Products Administration jointly released 15 typical cases of special actions to implement the "four strictest" requirements of food and drug safety. On the issues related to the "four strictest" special actions, the heads of the Fourth Procuratorate of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Law Enforcement Inspection Bureau of the State Administration of Market Supervision and the Policy and Regulation Department of National Medical Products Administration answered questions from reporters.
Question 1: Please tell us about the development of the "four strictest" special actions.
A: Food and drug safety is directly related to the people’s health and life safety, and embodies the most concerned, direct and realistic interests of the people. The CPC Central Committee has always attached great importance to it, and the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader has repeatedly made important instructions on strengthening food and drug safety. In order to thoroughly implement the "four strictest" requirements for food and drug safety supervision of the Supreme Leader General Secretary and promote the establishment of a sound food and drug safety governance system, from September 2019 to December 2020, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the State Administration of Markets and National Medical Products Administration jointly launched a special campaign to implement the "four strictest" requirements for food and drug safety. During this period, the national procuratorial organs, market supervision departments and drug supervision departments adjusted measures to local conditions, intensified cooperation and adopted various effective measures, and achieved positive results. According to preliminary statistics, the national market supervision department investigated and handled 284,800 cases involving food safety violations, fined 2.725 billion yuan, revoked 775 administrative licenses for food, and transferred 3,346 cases to public security organs; The drug regulatory authorities investigated and dealt with 107,700 illegal cases in the fields of drugs, cosmetics and medical devices, fined 1.84 billion yuan, ordered 2,041 enterprises to stop production and business, and transferred 1,306 cases to the public security organs, completing the annual inspection of all 37 vaccine production enterprises, effectively ensuring the supply of influenza vaccines; Procuratorial organs approved the arrest of 3,945 cases involving 7,298 people in food and drug safety crimes, and prosecuted 8,791 cases involving 17,066 people;It is suggested that the administrative law enforcement organs transfer 1369 criminal cases with 1499 people, and supervise the public security organs to file 731 cases with 810 people; 35,381 public interest litigation cases involving food and drug safety were filed, 30,800 pre-litigation cases were handled, and 1,683 public interest litigation cases were filed.
During the special action period, local market supervision departments and procuratorial organs actively explored the establishment of working mechanisms such as clue exchange of suspected criminal cases and cases damaging public interests, consultation of investigation and judgment, and coordination of public interest litigation, and made every effort to create a full-chain supervision and assistance mechanism in the field of food safety. Carry out in-depth investigation of food safety hazards, enhance food safety risk assessment and sampling inspection, and focus on strengthening regional and systematic food safety risk prevention and control. The joint procuratorial organs have strengthened the supervision of filing cases, effectively promoted the solution of problems such as cases that are not fixed, cases that are not established, and penalties instead of punishment, and promoted the effective implementation of the linkage mechanism between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice. National Medical Products Administration organized special inspection of drugs selected in national procurement and special sampling inspection of new drugs, comprehensively investigated blood products production enterprises, carried out special inspection of psychotropic drugs of category II, special treatment of high-value medical consumables, and supervision and inspection of key products such as aseptic and implantable medical devices, infants and special-purpose cosmetics. Adhere to the crackdown on chaos, organize and carry out special rectification such as Chinese herbal pieces, online sales of drugs, "cleaning the net" of medical devices, and "cleaning the net online and clearing the source offline" of cosmetics to protect the safety of people’s online consumption. Constantly improve the legal system of drug supervision, and promote the promulgation and implementation of the Regulations on Cosmetics Supervision and Management. The Regulations on Medical Device Supervision and Management were reviewed and approved by the the State Council executive meeting, and the Measures for the Administration of Drug Registration and the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Drug Production were promulgated and implemented, providing a strong legal guarantee for the implementation of drug safety.Procuratorial organs fully perform their legal supervision functions and severely crack down on crimes endangering food and drug safety according to law. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate supervised and guided a number of major and complicated cases, such as "beef with water injection" case and vaccine case, and promoted the handling of cases. A talent pool of economic crime prosecutors in the national procuratorial organs has been set up, giving full play to the leading and exemplary role of business experts. Provincial procuratorates have strengthened their guidance and supervision by means of supervision and participation, and effectively curbed crimes that endanger food and drug safety with a high-pressure situation. Procuratorial organs in Shanghai and other places set up a cross-regional "specialized case-handling team in the food and drug field" to improve the quality and efficiency of handling food and drug cases and thoroughly study difficult frontier issues. Some procuratorial organs have introduced "external brains" from universities and administrative law enforcement agencies to establish expert think tanks in the field of food and medicine. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Office of the Food Safety Committee of the State Council, the State Administration of Market Supervision and other ten units signed the Opinions on Strengthening Cooperation and Cooperation in Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation to Protect Food and Drug Safety according to Law, which made clear provisions on clue transfer and filing jurisdiction. Procuratorial organs around the country actively broaden the channels of administrative procuratorial supervision and public interest litigation clue discovery in the field of food and drug, strengthen internal linkage and external cooperation, improve cooperation mechanisms such as information exchange, briefing and consultation on difficult issues, and create a good supervision atmosphere. Adhere to the combination of case supervision and case supervision, and actively play the role of procuratorial suggestions.For the regulatory loopholes and weak links in the field of food and drug safety found in handling cases, urge the regulatory authorities to perform their duties according to law and jointly improve the food and drug safety governance system.
Question 2: How do the three departments cooperate and strengthen cooperation in protecting food and drug safety?
A: Our three departments took this special action as an opportunity to communicate and cooperate closely, and Qi Xin worked together to safeguard food and drug safety. First, strengthen communication and information sharing. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the State Administration of Market Supervision and National Medical Products Administration held seminars on key cases, jointly observed court trials, exchanged personnel positions, and supported each other in business training. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate invited the Supreme People’s Court, State Administration of Market Supervision, China Consumers Association and other units to hold a forum to reach a preliminary consensus on promoting the construction of punitive damages system. Local market supervision departments and drug supervision departments take the initiative to invite procuratorial organs to participate in food and drug safety supervision and other law enforcement activities, timely inform the progress of administrative investigation of cases and transfer them to the public security, jointly study and deal with difficult and complicated cases, realize information exchange and sharing, and form a joint force of law enforcement and justice. The second is to jointly carry out special "small projects". In view of the key areas and regions with high local food and drug safety risks, all localities have taken "small special projects" as the starting point and breakthrough point to promote the in-depth implementation of the "four most stringent" requirements. For example, the procuratorial organs in many places jointly with market supervision, education, health and epidemic prevention departments carry out special inspections on the food safety situation on campus and around, actively implement the requirements of national epidemic prevention and control work, and effectively protect the health of teachers and students. The third is to work together to promote the formulation and improvement of relevant laws and regulations.Combined with the revision of the scope of counterfeit and inferior drugs in the Drug Administration Law, we will jointly study and improve the relevant legal provisions for punishing drug safety crimes, boost National Medical Products Administration to issue a reply on the identification of counterfeit and inferior drugs, and put forward opinions on the relevant provisions of the Eleventh Amendment to the Criminal Law. In view of the outstanding problems that need to be solved in criminal cases involving food in judicial practice, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate are jointly revising the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases Endangering Food Safety, and the State Administration of Market Supervision actively participates in the study, and jointly designs the rules in combination with the practice of handling cases and ensuring people’s livelihood needs. The fourth is to further establish and improve the long-term mechanism for the connection between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice. Relevant functional departments are studying and formulating the Measures for Linking Administrative Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice in Market Supervision and Management and the Measures for Linking Administrative Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice in the Field of Agricultural Products Quality and Safety. The promulgation of these documents will further rationalize the mechanism of "Linking the Two Laws", promote all functional departments to fully unite their efforts and expand their work effectiveness. Procuratorial organs in many places and relevant administrative supervision departments have jointly formulated specific implementation rules and supporting specifications for the "convergence of the two laws" to ensure the effective operation of the convergence mechanism.
Question 3: What measures did the three departments take during the epidemic prevention and control in COVID-19?
A: During the epidemic prevention and control in COVID-19, we closely focused on the overall situation of epidemic prevention and control, played a functional role, severely cracked down on illegal and criminal activities such as fake and inferior protective products and counterfeit and inferior drugs, and made every effort to ensure the quality and safety of epidemic prevention and control drugs and medical devices. The State Administration of Market Supervision has stepped up supervision and law enforcement, and given full play to the role of "ensuring price, quality and supply" to ensure that all kinds of epidemic prevention supplies and residents’ daily necessities are stable in price, safe in quality and sufficient in supply, so as to protect the epidemic prevention and control. Taking the case listing supervision as the starting point, we constantly explored the establishment and improvement of the cooperation mechanism for major case reports and case investigation, continued to deepen the coordination and linkage of law enforcement and case handling, actively carried out the case investigation and supervision, listed and supervised 42 cases involving high amount of money, serious illegal circumstances and great social impact, and organized the investigation and handling of food cases such as "Burger King" exposed at the March 15th party. Relevant stores and responsible persons involved in the case have been punished by administrative penalties such as revocation of administrative license, confiscation of illegal income and fines. National Medical Products Administration organized the centralized rectification of drugs and equipment for epidemic prevention and control, actively promoted the research and development of vaccines in Covid-19, made emergency approval for therapeutic drugs and medical protective medical devices in COVID-19, took the initiative to connect with relevant production enterprises, and completed registration inspection and review to prepare for the mass production of vaccines in Covid-19. And strictly control the quality, strengthen risk management, and send supervision teams to key provinces to supervise the quality of medical materials.At present, a total of 22 drugs have been urgently approved to carry out clinical trials on the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 and its related indications; Conditionally approve the listing of 2 drugs; 54 test reagents in Covid-19 were urgently approved, with a daily production capacity of 24.018 million. 420 registration certificates of medical protective clothing and 307 registration certificates of medical protective masks were approved for emergency treatment in various places. Two Covid-19 vaccines in China have been conditionally approved for marketing, and 16 vaccine varieties in 5 technical routes have been urgently approved for clinical trials, of which 6 vaccine varieties have already carried out phase III clinical trials.In view of the frequent occurrence of illegal and criminal cases such as manufacturing and selling fake and inferior prevention and control, protective equipment and substandard medical equipment during the epidemic prevention and control period, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate strengthened its research, grasped the characteristics of criminal laws, and timely issued the Opinions on Punishing Illegal and Criminal Cases that Hinder the Epidemic Prevention and Control of Pneumonia in novel coronavirus in conjunction with the Supreme People’s Court, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice, and actively responded to questions such as how to accurately grasp the standard of case proof and accurately apply the charges in the case of manufacturing and selling fake and inferior masks by answering reporters’ questions. Release a number of typical cases, organize line training, clarify standards for handling epidemic-related criminal cases, unify understanding, achieve precise strikes, and prevent and control according to law. In 2020, procuratorial organs handled a number of criminal cases involving the prevention and control of epidemic situation in the production and sale of fake and inferior commodities, intervened in the investigation of 682 such cases, arrested 400 cases of 683 people, prosecuted 451 cases of 959 people, made 225 effective judgments in the first instance, and supervised the public security organs to file 61 cases of 77 people. Procuratorial organs in various places give full play to their procuratorial functions, closely combine the fight against crimes according to law with epidemic prevention and control, resumption of work and production, and maintenance of market economic order, effectively protecting people’s lives, health and safety, and maintaining the stability of market economic order.
Question 4: What are the considerations for releasing these typical cases this time?
A: Thanks to the joint efforts of all parties, the overall food and drug safety situation has improved in recent years, but illegal and criminal cases that endanger food and drug safety still occur from time to time, bringing serious harm and great hidden dangers to people’s health. This time, we have screened 15 typical cases of administrative, criminal and public interest litigation in view of the frequent cases in law enforcement and judicial practice, and combined with the results of special actions, covering a wide range of areas, including cases in the food field involving meat products from overseas epidemic areas, weight loss coffee and health food with banned substances, "poisonous stuffed skin" and "fake roast duck", cooked food with falsified production date, and non-performance of online ordering platform, as well as cases in the drug field involving black workshops selling counterfeit drugs and pharmacies selling expired inferior drugs. Some are sold in traditional physical stores, some organize sales teams to promote them on a large scale, and some are widely sold through the Internet, which is very harmful.
For example, in the case of Shanghai Han Moumou and Hong Moumou producing and selling toxic and harmful food, Han Moumou and Hong Moumou mixed sibutramine banned by the state into weight loss coffee and sold it on the Internet on a large scale, with a sales amount of more than 8 million yuan, which endangered the physical and mental health of many online consumers. Remind consumers to improve their awareness of prevention, understand the harm and identification methods of "sibutramine" coffee, and achieve scientific slimming. Another example is the crime of producing and selling toxic and harmful food by Sun Moumou and others in Jilin. Without obtaining the relevant production license qualification, Sun Moumou and others used different packaging to produce health food in a small workshop, adding western medicine ingredients at will, and the sales volume reached more than 1,400 boxes, which seriously destroyed the market order of health food and endangered the health of consumers. Guide consumers to establish the concept of healthy consumption and safe consumption, and administrative law enforcement departments should also strengthen supervision and standardize the market order of health food. Another example is the case of Anhui Li Moumou and others manufacturing and selling counterfeit drugs. Li Moumou and others produced counterfeit drugs such as Benazepril hydrochloride tablets and aspirin enteric-coated tablets in black workshops and sold them to many places. The total production and sales amount was more than 3 million yuan, which directly endangered the life and health of patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and caused great social harm. It is suggested that the general public should pay attention to the safety of drug use, buy drugs from formal channels and check whether there is any difference in drug packaging and quality.
The cases released this time are all around the masses, which are closely related to their vital interests. On the one hand, it shows our clear attitude and firm determination to actively safeguard people’s personal and property safety, which is a powerful deterrent to criminals. On the other hand, it can remind people to raise their awareness of prevention and guard against being deceived when encountering similar situations in social life. At the same time, these cases also involve the effective connection between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, the distinction between this crime and that crime, and the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of the people through public interest litigation, which also has a certain demonstration and guidance role for law enforcement and case-handling departments in various places.
Question 5: What are your plans for the next step in protecting food and drug safety?
A: We will continue to strictly abide by the bottom line of food and drug safety, keep cracking down on illegal crimes that endanger food and drug safety, pay close attention to case investigation and improve the governance system, and really enhance the people’s sense of acquisition, happiness and security.
First, further implement the "four strictest" requirements, highlight key areas, focus on issues such as "three no foods", "expired foods" and "foods that have not been inspected and quarantined", severely crack down on illegal crimes of manufacturing and selling fake and shoddy foods in rural areas, and earnestly safeguard rural food safety. We will intensify efforts to crack down on the crimes of manufacturing and selling fake and inferior seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and other agricultural materials in accordance with the law, and earnestly safeguard national food security. Vigorously punish illegal additions and false propaganda in the field of health food to meet the health care needs of the people. Properly handle epidemic-related cases according to law, accurately punish illegal crimes of manufacturing and selling fake and inferior products, protective products, medicines and cold-chain foods with unknown sources, keep a close eye on production, sales and transportation, actively promote the supervision of key epidemic prevention products such as vaccines, strengthen forward-looking analysis and judgment, and punish criminal acts according to law. We will carry out in-depth special rectification of illegal online sales of drugs and cosmetics, and maintain the safety of online consumption of drugs and cosmetics. The second is to further improve the normalized communication and coordination mechanism, enhance regulatory coordination, and promote the formulation and promulgation of relevant market supervision, agricultural product safety administrative law enforcement and criminal justice convergence methods to enhance the joint efforts. The third is to strengthen the research on problems, and combine the new situation of the introduction of the Criminal Law Amendment (11), the revision of the Drug Administration Law and the Regulations on the Management of Medical Devices, and the substantial revision of the judicial interpretation of food, and conduct targeted and in-depth research to solve new problems and new situations.In particular, the difficult and complicated problems in illegal and criminal cases and the application of new crimes in criminal law are deeply explored to promote the parties to reach a consensus and form a unified standard. Fourth, jointly improve the professional level of the team, combine the needs of law enforcement and judicial practice, carry out in-depth research and guidance through joint training, listing and supervising cases, organizing and supervising, actively promote the construction of the core team for specialized case handling against illegal crimes endangering food and drug safety, and comprehensively improve the professional ability of case handlers and the quality and efficiency of case handling.
