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China prepares to enter vaccine-making market [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]
China's vaccine makers are gearing up over the next few years to push exports in a move that should lower costs of lifesaving immunizations for the world's poor and provide major new competition for the big Western pharmaceutical companies.
However, it may take some time before some parts of the world are ready to embrace Chinese products when safety is as sensitive an issue as it is with vaccines -- especially given the food, drug and other scandals the country has seen.
Still, China's entry into this market will be a "game changer," said Nina Schwalbe, head of policy at the GAVI Alliance, which buys vaccines for 50 million children a year worldwide.
China's vaccine-making prowess captured world attention in 2009 when one of its companies developed the first effective vaccine against swine flu -- in just 87 days -- as the new virus swept the globe. In the past, new vaccine developments had usually been won by the U.S. and Europe.
Then, this past March the World Health Organization announced that China's drug-safety authority meets international standards for vaccine regulation. It opened the doors for Chinese vaccines to be submitted for WHO approval so they can be bought by U.N. agencies and the GAVI Alliance.
"China is a vaccine-producing power" with more than 30 companies that have an annual production capacity of nearly 1 billion doses -- the largest in the world, the country's State Food and Drug Administration said.
But more needs to be done to build confidence in Chinese vaccines overseas, said Helen Yang of Sinovac, the Chinese biotech firm that rapidly developed the swine-flu vaccine. "We think the main obstacle is that we have the name of 'made in China' still."
China's food- and drug-safety record in recent years hardly inspires confidence: In 2007, Chinese cough syrup killed 93 people in Central America; one year later, contaminated blood thinner led to dozens of deaths in the United States while tainted milk powder poisoned hundreds of thousands of Chinese babies and killed six.
The government has since imposed more regulations, stricter inspections and heavier punishments for violators. Perhaps because of that, regulators crack down on counterfeit and substandard drugmaking.
While welcoming WHO's approval of China's drug-safety authority, one expert said it takes more than a regulatory agency to keep drugmakers from cutting corners or producing fakes.
"In the U.S., we have supporting institutions such as the market economy, democracy, media monitoring, civil society, as well as a well-developed business-ethics code, but these are all still pretty much absent in China," said Yanzhong Huang, a China health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "For China, the challenge is much greater in building a strong, robust regulative capacity."
Last year, a Chinese newspaper report linked improperly stored vaccines to four children's deaths in northern Shanxi province, raising nationwide concern. The Health Ministry said the vaccines did not cause the deaths, but some remained skeptical.
Chinese researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this year that a pandemic flu vaccine given to 90 million people in 2009 was safe.
WHO's medical officer for immunization, Dr. Yvan Hutin, said WHO's approval of the Chinese drug regulatory agency is not "a blank check." Each vaccine will be evaluated rigorously, with WHO and Chinese inspectors given access to vaccine plants on top of other safety checks, he said.
Vaccines have historically been a touchy subject in the Western world, rife with safety concerns and conspiracy theories. Worries about vaccine safety resurfaced in the late 1990s triggered by debate over a claimed association between the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella and autism. The claim was later discredited.
Vaccines also are a significant part of a $300 million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the development of new health and farming products for poor countries.
China's entry into this field is important because one child dies every 20 seconds from vaccine-preventable diseases each year. UNICEF, the children's agency and the world's biggest buyer of vaccines, has been in talks with Chinese companies, said its supply director Shanelle Hall. The fund provides vaccines to nearly 60 percent of the world's children, and last year spent about $757 million.
Worldwide, vaccine sales last year grew 14 percent to $25.3 billion, according to health-care market research firm Kalorama Information, as drugmakers, which face intensifying competition from generic drugs, now see vaccines as key areas of growth, particularly in Latin America, China and India.
China's vaccine makers, some of whom already export in small amounts, are confident they will soon become big players in the field.
"I personally predict that in the next five to 10 years, China will become a very important vaccine-manufacture base in the world," said Wu Yonglin, vice president of the state-owned China National Biotec Group.
The entry of Chinese companies is expected to further pressure Western pharmaceutical companies to lower prices. Earlier this year, UNICEF's move to publicize what drugmakers charge it for vaccines showed that Western drugmakers often charged the agency double what companies in India and Indonesia do.
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Romney outlines plans for illegal immigration [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]
Backing off the harsh rhetoric of the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney pledged Thursday to address illegal immigration "in a civil but resolute manner."
He outlined plans to overhaul the green-card system for immigrants with families and to end immigration caps for their spouses and minor children.
In a speech before Hispanic leaders, Romney made only passing mention of his promise to complete a 2,000-mile border fence to help stem illegal immigration. Instead he attacked President Barack Obama's new plan to ease deportation rules for some illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children as little more than a "stopgap measure."
"As president, I won't settle for a stop-gap measure. I will work with Republicans and Democrats to find a long-term solution," Romney told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. "I will prioritize measures that strengthen legal immigration and make it easier. And I will address the problem of illegal immigration in a civil but resolute manner. We may not always agree, but when I make a promise to you, I will keep it."
Obama will speak to the same group today. The speeches come as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to render judgment on a get-tough Arizona law and after Obama announced his revised deportation plan.
Romney again refused to say whether he would reverse Obama's policy, promising his "own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president's temporary measure."
The former Massachusetts governor has struggled in recent days to clarify his immigration policy as he pivots from the sharp tone that defined the months-long GOP primary to a general-election audience in which Latinos will play a critical role.
During the primaries, Romney and his Republican opponents focused on border security and English as the official language, but the former Massachusetts governor didn't spell out precisely what he would do to address the nation's immigration problem.
On Thursday, as he filled in a few blanks, Romney devoted only one sentence in a 17-minute speech to the border fence and ignored language issues altogether. He did note, however, his father's birth to American parents living in a Mormon colony in Mexico.
"When he was 5, they left everything behind and started over in the United States," Romney said. "I've spoken often about how proud I am of my father."
At least one in six Americans is of Hispanic descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and many lean toward the Democrats. By softening his tone on immigration, Romney is looking to narrow the advantage Obama has with this constituency.
The stakes are high not only for states with larger Hispanic populations such as Florida, Nevada and Colorado, but for other battlegrounds -- Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia among them -- where even a modest shift among Latino voters could be significant.
Romney was vague in some areas, particularly the treatment of immigrant children brought to the country illegally by their parents, but offered new details in others.
His plan to reallocate green cards for immigrants with families and end caps for spouses and minor children would mark a change from the current system, which is something of a first-come, first- served system. And his pledge to "staple a green card to your diploma" for immigrants who earned advanced degrees in the United States represents a significant change from current law.
It is unclear how many of Romney's promises on immigration reform, such as granting green cards to high-tech graduates, could be accomplished without congressional action.
Obama has used presidential authority twice since 2011 to make changes to immigration enforcement, including last week's announcement that many young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children would be exempted for deportation and granted work permits for two years.
The president's re-election campaign blasted Romney for ignoring his previously stated opposition to the Dream Act, a measure that would have allowed some children of illegal immigrants to stay in the country legally.
"In front of an audience of Republican primary voters, he called the Dream Act a 'handout' and promised to veto it," Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith said.
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, greets attendees at the NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials) conference in Orlando, Fla., Thursday, June 21, 2012.
Who says TV rots your brain? Not these Olin College of Engineering freshmen, whose Hashtag Glove -- it posts to Twitter when wearers make a hashtag sign with their fingers -- was inspired by a Jimmy Fallon late-night comedy skit. Just in time for winter!
Ruth Tie was born and raised in Southeast Asia, where professionals such as doctors and engineers are in high demand. Here's why she decided to study electrical engineering at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Hint: It has something to do with bringing A Liter of Light to homes that lack electricity.