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BEIJING: Chinese police have arrested a man suspected of selling a fake diabetes medicine that killed two people, state media reported Saturday, in the latest scandal to hit the country's drugs industry.
The man, identified as Li Dong, was suspected of being behind the distribution of the fake medicine and was arrested in northeastern Liaoning Province along with two suspected associates, Xinhua news agency reported.
Li was reported to have told investigators that he had bought the fake drug from another province. Thousands of bottles of the bogus drug have already been seized across China, Xinhua and other media reported.
Authorities first discovered it in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where they seized more than 10,600 bottles and where two people died last month after taking the drugs.
The real medicine is normally used to help control blood sugar levels in people with type two diabetes, the most common form of the disease.
But the fake version contained six times the normal dose of glibenclamide, Xinhua said, without explaining why the levels were so high.
Five other suspects have been arrested in Xinjiang.
Bans and recalls of drug products are common in China due to widespread safety problems in the nation's chaotic, under-regulated and often corrupt health industry.
The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was executed in 2007 for taking bribes in exchange for product safety licences.
In another recent scandal, Chinese-made herbal remedies killed at least four people in October last year.
- AFP/yb
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