维基解密：美联邦议员向中国推售有毒产品

【多维新闻】2007年，中国有毒玩具和宠物食品等遭到美国严厉谴责，当时极其代表性的美方谴责来自两名国会议员。然而，2009年，一家美国公司违规向中国出售有毒医疗用品却迎来这两位议员的“献媚施压”。据美国维基解密网站最新公布的电文显示，2名国会议员是通过施压中国商务部来为美国问题公司赢得时间的，变相、间接向中国销售有毒医疗用品。

美国维基解密最新公布的美国外交密电显示，2007年，中国制造的一批有毒出口商品（有毒玩具、化学药物制品和宠物食品）遭到美国和其他国家的巨额索赔和严厉谴责。8月，美泰公司（Mattel）就被迫召回2千万中国制造的有毒玩具。当时，对中国发表私人谴责的有两名国会议员是柯克（Mark Kirk）和拉尔森(Rick Larsen）。

2009年，时任美国伊利诺斯州共和党众议员的柯克和美国华盛顿州众议员拉尔森再次回到北京，向北京传达了“完全不同”的信息。他们这次来北京不是谴责北京，而是有求于北京。因为美国百特国际有限公司（Baxter International Inc.）违规将含有有毒化学物质的医疗设备售往中国，两位议员希望中国能够不予理睬。

当时，百特通过使用聚氯乙烯（PVC）作为塑料软化剂制造用于静脉输注用的血袋，而PVC在世界其他国家已经被禁止使用，因为PVC中的一种化学物质（DEHP，邻苯二甲酸二异辛酯）可以停滞在人体内部，给孩童等带来发育缺陷。中国香港医学教授Tin-Lap Lee表示，DEHP可导致多种健康危险，如致癌和生殖健康影响等。

欧盟（UN）2009年也已禁止使用该化学物质。据美国外交密电描述，中国在2009也在寻求禁止这一有害化学物质流入医院。中国监管人员也已规定新的输液袋不能含有PVC。在美国，虽然没有直接禁止使用PVC，但是，一些大型医院已经自动停止使用。而中国政府针对DEHP的限制已达20多年，即1988年出台，1995年和1994年进行过更新，现在至少有3种规定限制这一有害物质的使用。

但是，柯克和拉尔森2009年向中国商务部长施压，帮助百特拖延时间，因为百特曾是柯克2008年连任竞选期间的第三大助选公司。2010年，柯克当选国会参议员，填补了由奥巴马留下的参议员席位。

尽管美国一直以来被视为国际消费安全标准领域的领头者，一些专家担心，解密披露的美国外交矛盾信息将危及美国催逼他国遵守相关标准的能力。

英国路透社批评称，当谈论到保护消费者时，身处中国的美国政治家不总是在实践自己推行的法则。

目前，百特发言人拒绝透露销往中国的静脉注射袋数量，只称该公司是中国大型医院的主要生产商。她表示，该公司新的产品生产后将完全替代以前的产品且符合中国规定，目前正在等待中国监管审核，而且2011年该公司还准备全面加大业务。当被问及百特现在是否还存在违规的静脉注射血袋时，这位发言人表示，公司正与当局及医院确保关键医疗产品的及时供应。

百特位于伊利诺伊州迪尔费尔德，成立于1931年，是一家全球性多样化经营的医疗用品公司，以生产疫苗和注射液而闻名，在全球100多个国家设立了超过250家公司和分支机构。它于上世纪80年代进入中国，是最早进入中国医疗市场的大型跨国公司之一。上海为百特中国的总部，其他办事处分布于北京、广州、杭州、南京、天津等9个城市。
U.S. officials pushed products deemed unsafe by China
http://www.reuters.com/article/2 ... USTRE7287OR20110309
(By Emily Flitter
NEW YORK | Wed Mar 9, 2011 6:01pm EST
(Reuters) - When it comes to protecting consumers, American
politicians in China don't always practice what they preach,
unpublished U.S. diplomatic cables show.

In 2007, two U.S. Congressmen privately admonished a Chinese
official about the sudden spike in potentially harmful Made-
in-China products being shipped around the world, according to
a cable from the U.S. embassy in Beijing obtained by WikiLeaks
and provided to Reuters by a third party.

At the time, China was under fire from the United States and
other nations for a host of toxic exports -- everything from
lead paint in toys to poisonous chemical substitutes for
ingredients in medicine and pet food. In August of that year,
Mattel alone was compelled to recall 20 million toys that had
been manufactured in China.

Two years later, the cables show, the same U.S. Congressmen --
Mark Kirk, then a House Republican from Illinois, and Rick
Larsen, a Democrat from Washington -- returned to Beijing,
only this time they had an entirely different message. Kirk
and Larsen asked Chinese officials to look the other way as an
American company failed to meet regulations restricting the
use of a toxic chemical in medical equipment sold to Chinese
hospitals.

The company, Baxter Healthcare, was making blood bags for
intravenous delivery using polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a plastic
softener that has been banned in some other parts of the
world. A chemical found in PVC has been shown to build up in
humans, causing developmental defects in children, among other
things. The European Union banned the chemical in question --
commonly known as DEHP -- from all household products this
year.

According to the diplomatic cables, China was seeking to do
the same for its hospitals. Its regulators had already
stipulated that new IV bags must be manufactured without PVCs.

On behalf of Baxter, however, the two Congressmen pressed the
Chinese commerce minister to buy time for the company, which
was the third largest contributor to Kirk's 2008 reelection
campaign. In 2010 he was elected a senator, filling the vacant
Illinois seat left by President Barack Obama.

While the United States is a recognized leader in consumer
safety standards, some experts fear that an inconsistent
diplomatic message could jeopardize its ability to insist
others abide by the same beliefs.

"If we want to really focus on the issue, we've got to be
consistent," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global
health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, who is
the founding editor of Global Health Governance, a journal
dealing with international health security issues. "You don't
want to leave a credibility gap for the Chinese to criticize."

HEALTH HAZARDS

Based in Deerfield, Illinois, Baxter International is a
medical equipment maker best known for making vaccines and IV
solutions, with annual revenue of $12.84 billion in 2010. The
company has long denied that DEHP is harmful, though it has
been making an alternative line of IV equipment free of the
chemical in the United States for some time. While there is no
outright ban on the use of PVCs in the United States, some
major hospital companies have voluntarily halted their use.

For its part, the Chinese government has had restrictions in
place on DEHP for over 20 years.

"DEHP has a number of known health hazards," Tin-Lap Lee,
associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's
School of Medical Sciences, told Reuters in an interview.
"It's classified as carcinogen and may cause reproductive and
developmental effects."

The first time China regulated DEHP content in plastics was in
1988. The government updated its regulations in 1995 and 2004,
and today at least three regulations govern its use there.
They specify safe levels of the chemical for medical products
such as blood storage bags, blood transfusion materials and
blood tubes, all of which are commonly made of PVC. These
restrictions state that contaminants in these products must
not exceed certain limits.

A spokeswoman for Baxter International declined to specify how
many IV bags Baxter sells in China, but said the company was
"the leading manufacturer of flexible, closed-system IV
solutions in China, serving the country's leading hospitals."
She said a new product Baxter is working on "meets the
regulations" in China, and that "pending regulatory approvals,
we are preparing for full commercial launch later this year."
She added that the old IV bags would no longer be sold once
the new line was introduced.

Asked if Baxter is currently selling IV bags that don't meet
regulatory requirements, she replied: "We are still working
through the details of the transition with authorities and
hospitals to ensure there is no disruption to supply of vital
products to hospitals."

THE CONGRESSMEN

Kirk and Larsen have traveled to China together three times
over the past five years as co-chairs of the U.S.-China
Working Group of the U.S. Congress, which they co-founded in
2005. The group connects members of Congress with Chinese
academics, businesspeople and politicians. Over that period
they have held talks with dozens of Chinese officials,
including with the nation's vice premier, commerce secretary
and assistant foreign minister.

It is by no means uncommon for members of Congress to travel
to China and lobby on behalf of constituents. Yet a review of
dozens of cables describing congressional delegations to China
reveals no other instance of a U.S. politician requesting rule
changes to help an American firm.

At the time of Kirk's 2009 visit to China, he was a member of
the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Illinois' 10th
district, the wealthy northern suburbs of Chicago where Baxter
is headquartered. The company's political action committee and
its executives are among Kirk's largest campaign contributors,
providing him with a total of $98,900 over the past 10 years.

Baxter executives have not contributed to Larsen's fundraising
activities in any significant way, but two other companies
with substantial business ties in China do: Boeing and
Honeywell International.

DOUBLE STANDARD

The first time Kirk and Larsen spoke with the Chinese about
product safety, it was to admonish China's Assistant Foreign
Minister He Yafei for scandals in 2007 involving Chinese goods
exported to the United States that were found to contain
toxins such as lead.

"Representative Larsen urged China to address U.S. concerns
about the safety of Chinese exports, particularly food
products and toys," reads a cable describing Kirk and Larsen's
meeting with He on Aug 27, 2007.

"It would be a mistake for China to 'underestimate the passion
of the American public on this issue,'" Larsen told He.

Two years later, however, the two were making the opposite
request, asking for leniency in medical product regulations.

A spokeswoman from Larsen's office said Larsen was too busy to
comment on the story, but added:

"Congressman Larsen, along with many others, has worked to
help China raise its product safety standards by promoting and
securing a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) presence in
China, and his understanding of the Baxter products is that
they are FDA certified, sold in the United States, safe for
use, China wants something different than the standards the
FDA approved for this product and Baxter needs more time to
fully comply with the Chinese regulation."

A spokeswoman for Kirk said: "The USFDA is the gold standard
for safe and effective medical supplies. Once FDA approves a
product, Senator Kirk will advocate for its export to boost
jobs and U.S. leadership. The claims against these products by
the Chinese government are thinly veiled attempts to stop
American competitors."

WHY THE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT?
The United States lobbied hard on Baxter's behalf. In a
meeting with China's Minister of Commerce Chen Deming on May
31, 2009, Kirk asked for more time for Baxter to meet China's
regulations, arguing that a crackdown on Baxter would hurt the
company's Shanghai plant.

The cable describing the meeting doesn't convey the exact
wording of Kirk's request, but it does describe Chen's
response:

"He said that while he lacked the requisite technical
knowledge, if additional time for phasing in a new regulation
would help preserve employment in China and made economic
sense, this would seem to be good."

A note in the cable adds: "(U.S. government) officials have
raised this issue at a sub-ministerial level in the past with
(the Ministry of Commerce)."

Ira Kasoff, then the deputy assistant secretary for Asia at
the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration,
asked National Development and Reform Commission Director
General Chen Bin in a meeting on April 1, 2009 to "give Baxter
China adequate time to phase out the use of polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) in intravenous infusion bags or face possible job
losses."

Kasoff no longer works for the Commerce Department; he's a
senior counselor at APCO Worldwide, a Washington-based
consulting firm.

"I did, along with others, try to speak to the Chinese about
allowing enough of a transitional time for allowing these
companies to make the adjustment," Kasoff said in an
interview, adding that he did not remember many details.

"It was a fairly complicated changeover and they had to retool
the factories."

Of Baxter, he said "they have a long-term commitment to China
and they've made major investments there."

Questions remain over what the Chinese agreed to do in
response to the U.S. request on behalf of Baxter. The Baxter
spokeswoman insisted that the problem was not one of time but
rather of complicated coordination between different Chinese
regulators that was holding Baxter up in its efforts to retool
its four Chinese factors to make non-PVC IV bags.

Kasoff suggested that the person who would know the story best
was J.V. Schwan, a former Commerce Department official who did
not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

Schwan left his job as deputy chief of staff at the Commerce
Department in late 2008 to become a lobbyist for Baxter.

(Additional reporting by Ee Lyn Tan in Hong Kong and Mark
Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Jim Impoco and Claudia
Parsons)

【多维新闻】2007年，中国有毒玩具和宠物食品等遭到美国严厉谴责，当时极其代表性的美方谴责来自两名国会议员。然而，2009年，一家美国公司违规向中国出售有毒医疗用品却迎来这两位议员的“献媚施压”。据美国维基解密网站最新公布的电文显示，2名国会议员是通过施压中国商务部来为美国问题公司赢得时间的，变相、间接向中国销售有毒医疗用品。

美国维基解密最新公布的美国外交密电显示，2007年，中国制造的一批有毒出口商品（有毒玩具、化学药物制品和宠物食品）遭到美国和其他国家的巨额索赔和严厉谴责。8月，美泰公司（Mattel）就被迫召回2千万中国制造的有毒玩具。当时，对中国发表私人谴责的有两名国会议员是柯克（Mark Kirk）和拉尔森(Rick Larsen）。

2009年，时任美国伊利诺斯州共和党众议员的柯克和美国华盛顿州众议员拉尔森再次回到北京，向北京传达了“完全不同”的信息。他们这次来北京不是谴责北京，而是有求于北京。因为美国百特国际有限公司（Baxter International Inc.）违规将含有有毒化学物质的医疗设备售往中国，两位议员希望中国能够不予理睬。

当时，百特通过使用聚氯乙烯（PVC）作为塑料软化剂制造用于静脉输注用的血袋，而PVC在世界其他国家已经被禁止使用，因为PVC中的一种化学物质（DEHP，邻苯二甲酸二异辛酯）可以停滞在人体内部，给孩童等带来发育缺陷。中国香港医学教授Tin-Lap Lee表示，DEHP可导致多种健康危险，如致癌和生殖健康影响等。

欧盟（UN）2009年也已禁止使用该化学物质。据美国外交密电描述，中国在2009也在寻求禁止这一有害化学物质流入医院。中国监管人员也已规定新的输液袋不能含有PVC。在美国，虽然没有直接禁止使用PVC，但是，一些大型医院已经自动停止使用。而中国政府针对DEHP的限制已达20多年，即1988年出台，1995年和1994年进行过更新，现在至少有3种规定限制这一有害物质的使用。

但是，柯克和拉尔森2009年向中国商务部长施压，帮助百特拖延时间，因为百特曾是柯克2008年连任竞选期间的第三大助选公司。2010年，柯克当选国会参议员，填补了由奥巴马留下的参议员席位。

尽管美国一直以来被视为国际消费安全标准领域的领头者，一些专家担心，解密披露的美国外交矛盾信息将危及美国催逼他国遵守相关标准的能力。

英国路透社批评称，当谈论到保护消费者时，身处中国的美国政治家不总是在实践自己推行的法则。

目前，百特发言人拒绝透露销往中国的静脉注射袋数量，只称该公司是中国大型医院的主要生产商。她表示，该公司新的产品生产后将完全替代以前的产品且符合中国规定，目前正在等待中国监管审核，而且2011年该公司还准备全面加大业务。当被问及百特现在是否还存在违规的静脉注射血袋时，这位发言人表示，公司正与当局及医院确保关键医疗产品的及时供应。

百特位于伊利诺伊州迪尔费尔德，成立于1931年，是一家全球性多样化经营的医疗用品公司，以生产疫苗和注射液而闻名，在全球100多个国家设立了超过250家公司和分支机构。它于上世纪80年代进入中国，是最早进入中国医疗市场的大型跨国公司之一。上海为百特中国的总部，其他办事处分布于北京、广州、杭州、南京、天津等9个城市。
U.S. officials pushed products deemed unsafe by China
http://www.reuters.com/article/2 ... USTRE7287OR20110309
(By Emily Flitter
NEW YORK | Wed Mar 9, 2011 6:01pm EST
(Reuters) - When it comes to protecting consumers, American
politicians in China don't always practice what they preach,
unpublished U.S. diplomatic cables show.

In 2007, two U.S. Congressmen privately admonished a Chinese
official about the sudden spike in potentially harmful Made-
in-China products being shipped around the world, according to
a cable from the U.S. embassy in Beijing obtained by WikiLeaks
and provided to Reuters by a third party.

At the time, China was under fire from the United States and
other nations for a host of toxic exports -- everything from
lead paint in toys to poisonous chemical substitutes for
ingredients in medicine and pet food. In August of that year,
Mattel alone was compelled to recall 20 million toys that had
been manufactured in China.

Two years later, the cables show, the same U.S. Congressmen --
Mark Kirk, then a House Republican from Illinois, and Rick
Larsen, a Democrat from Washington -- returned to Beijing,
only this time they had an entirely different message. Kirk
and Larsen asked Chinese officials to look the other way as an
American company failed to meet regulations restricting the
use of a toxic chemical in medical equipment sold to Chinese
hospitals.

The company, Baxter Healthcare, was making blood bags for
intravenous delivery using polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a plastic
softener that has been banned in some other parts of the
world. A chemical found in PVC has been shown to build up in
humans, causing developmental defects in children, among other
things. The European Union banned the chemical in question --
commonly known as DEHP -- from all household products this
year.

According to the diplomatic cables, China was seeking to do
the same for its hospitals. Its regulators had already
stipulated that new IV bags must be manufactured without PVCs.

On behalf of Baxter, however, the two Congressmen pressed the
Chinese commerce minister to buy time for the company, which
was the third largest contributor to Kirk's 2008 reelection
campaign. In 2010 he was elected a senator, filling the vacant
Illinois seat left by President Barack Obama.

While the United States is a recognized leader in consumer
safety standards, some experts fear that an inconsistent
diplomatic message could jeopardize its ability to insist
others abide by the same beliefs.

"If we want to really focus on the issue, we've got to be
consistent," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global
health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, who is
the founding editor of Global Health Governance, a journal
dealing with international health security issues. "You don't
want to leave a credibility gap for the Chinese to criticize."

HEALTH HAZARDS

Based in Deerfield, Illinois, Baxter International is a
medical equipment maker best known for making vaccines and IV
solutions, with annual revenue of $12.84 billion in 2010. The
company has long denied that DEHP is harmful, though it has
been making an alternative line of IV equipment free of the
chemical in the United States for some time. While there is no
outright ban on the use of PVCs in the United States, some
major hospital companies have voluntarily halted their use.

For its part, the Chinese government has had restrictions in
place on DEHP for over 20 years.

"DEHP has a number of known health hazards," Tin-Lap Lee,
associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's
School of Medical Sciences, told Reuters in an interview.
"It's classified as carcinogen and may cause reproductive and
developmental effects."

The first time China regulated DEHP content in plastics was in
1988. The government updated its regulations in 1995 and 2004,
and today at least three regulations govern its use there.
They specify safe levels of the chemical for medical products
such as blood storage bags, blood transfusion materials and
blood tubes, all of which are commonly made of PVC. These
restrictions state that contaminants in these products must
not exceed certain limits.

A spokeswoman for Baxter International declined to specify how
many IV bags Baxter sells in China, but said the company was
"the leading manufacturer of flexible, closed-system IV
solutions in China, serving the country's leading hospitals."
She said a new product Baxter is working on "meets the
regulations" in China, and that "pending regulatory approvals,
we are preparing for full commercial launch later this year."
She added that the old IV bags would no longer be sold once
the new line was introduced.

Asked if Baxter is currently selling IV bags that don't meet
regulatory requirements, she replied: "We are still working
through the details of the transition with authorities and
hospitals to ensure there is no disruption to supply of vital
products to hospitals."

THE CONGRESSMEN

Kirk and Larsen have traveled to China together three times
over the past five years as co-chairs of the U.S.-China
Working Group of the U.S. Congress, which they co-founded in
2005. The group connects members of Congress with Chinese
academics, businesspeople and politicians. Over that period
they have held talks with dozens of Chinese officials,
including with the nation's vice premier, commerce secretary
and assistant foreign minister.

It is by no means uncommon for members of Congress to travel
to China and lobby on behalf of constituents. Yet a review of
dozens of cables describing congressional delegations to China
reveals no other instance of a U.S. politician requesting rule
changes to help an American firm.

At the time of Kirk's 2009 visit to China, he was a member of
the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Illinois' 10th
district, the wealthy northern suburbs of Chicago where Baxter
is headquartered. The company's political action committee and
its executives are among Kirk's largest campaign contributors,
providing him with a total of $98,900 over the past 10 years.

Baxter executives have not contributed to Larsen's fundraising
activities in any significant way, but two other companies
with substantial business ties in China do: Boeing and
Honeywell International.

DOUBLE STANDARD

The first time Kirk and Larsen spoke with the Chinese about
product safety, it was to admonish China's Assistant Foreign
Minister He Yafei for scandals in 2007 involving Chinese goods
exported to the United States that were found to contain
toxins such as lead.

"Representative Larsen urged China to address U.S. concerns
about the safety of Chinese exports, particularly food
products and toys," reads a cable describing Kirk and Larsen's
meeting with He on Aug 27, 2007.

"It would be a mistake for China to 'underestimate the passion
of the American public on this issue,'" Larsen told He.

Two years later, however, the two were making the opposite
request, asking for leniency in medical product regulations.

A spokeswoman from Larsen's office said Larsen was too busy to
comment on the story, but added:

"Congressman Larsen, along with many others, has worked to
help China raise its product safety standards by promoting and
securing a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) presence in
China, and his understanding of the Baxter products is that
they are FDA certified, sold in the United States, safe for
use, China wants something different than the standards the
FDA approved for this product and Baxter needs more time to
fully comply with the Chinese regulation."

A spokeswoman for Kirk said: "The USFDA is the gold standard
for safe and effective medical supplies. Once FDA approves a
product, Senator Kirk will advocate for its export to boost
jobs and U.S. leadership. The claims against these products by
the Chinese government are thinly veiled attempts to stop
American competitors."

WHY THE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT?
The United States lobbied hard on Baxter's behalf. In a
meeting with China's Minister of Commerce Chen Deming on May
31, 2009, Kirk asked for more time for Baxter to meet China's
regulations, arguing that a crackdown on Baxter would hurt the
company's Shanghai plant.

The cable describing the meeting doesn't convey the exact
wording of Kirk's request, but it does describe Chen's
response:

"He said that while he lacked the requisite technical
knowledge, if additional time for phasing in a new regulation
would help preserve employment in China and made economic
sense, this would seem to be good."

A note in the cable adds: "(U.S. government) officials have
raised this issue at a sub-ministerial level in the past with
(the Ministry of Commerce)."

Ira Kasoff, then the deputy assistant secretary for Asia at
the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration,
asked National Development and Reform Commission Director
General Chen Bin in a meeting on April 1, 2009 to "give Baxter
China adequate time to phase out the use of polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) in intravenous infusion bags or face possible job
losses."

Kasoff no longer works for the Commerce Department; he's a
senior counselor at APCO Worldwide, a Washington-based
consulting firm.

"I did, along with others, try to speak to the Chinese about
allowing enough of a transitional time for allowing these
companies to make the adjustment," Kasoff said in an
interview, adding that he did not remember many details.

"It was a fairly complicated changeover and they had to retool
the factories."

Of Baxter, he said "they have a long-term commitment to China
and they've made major investments there."

Questions remain over what the Chinese agreed to do in
response to the U.S. request on behalf of Baxter. The Baxter
spokeswoman insisted that the problem was not one of time but
rather of complicated coordination between different Chinese
regulators that was holding Baxter up in its efforts to retool
its four Chinese factors to make non-PVC IV bags.

Kasoff suggested that the person who would know the story best
was J.V. Schwan, a former Commerce Department official who did
not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

Schwan left his job as deputy chief of staff at the Commerce
Department in late 2008 to become a lobbyist for Baxter.

(Additional reporting by Ee Lyn Tan in Hong Kong and Mark
Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Jim Impoco and Claudia
Parsons)