China News Service, February 28. According to the official WeChat news of the "Supreme People's Procuratorate", in 2021, procuratorial organs across the country will handle 30,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of food and drug safety, a year-on-year increase of 10%.
In some public welfare cases endangering food and drug safety, the procuratorial organs have explored punitive damages. While making the offenders bear the responsibility for compensation, they also pay a certain amount of punitive damages to increase the cost of illegal activities and make the offenders "so painful that they dare not commit the crime again." Alert potential offenders.
Judging from the handling of cases by the procuratorial organs, the problems of harming public interests in the field of food and drug safety are mainly concentrated in three aspects.
First, there are frequent food safety problems, and the supervision of the whole process from farmland to dining table must be strengthened.
In 2021, the procuratorial organs will handle more than 26,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of food safety, including nearly 8,000 cases involving illegal sales of agricultural products and food in farmers' markets and supermarkets.
For example, a local procuratorate found that some samples of 16 edible agricultural products in 3 categories of vegetables, soy products, and aquatic products sold in some farmers markets contained non-edible substances formaldehyde and white lumps, and some fresh vegetables had excessive pesticide residues. Has a greater safety hazard.
The procuratorial organs urge the market supervision, agriculture and rural departments to coordinate and link, strengthen the supervision of the production and sales of edible agricultural products in key places such as farmers markets, increase the frequency of sampling inspections of key foods, investigate and deal with illegal business activities in accordance with the law, and urge market operators and sales operators to strictly implement the purchase of goods. Obligations of inspection and sampling testing, establish and improve the files of sellers entering the market and the traceability system for the quality and safety of edible agricultural products, and promote the regulation and control of the chaos in the edible agricultural product industry in the farmers market.
Second, the production and sale of counterfeit and inferior medicines, the obstruction of drug management and other illegal acts that endanger drug safety and the risks of non-standard medical services are more prominent.
In 2021, the procuratorial organs will handle more than 3,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of drug safety.
For example, Zou and others purchased raw materials, machinery and equipment, illegally produced 42 kinds of counterfeit drugs such as Xiaoliushu Capsules without obtaining a drug production and sales license, and put false advertisements on the Internet and faked famous hospitals. Doctors conduct sales by telephone consultation and marketing.
The procuratorial organ filed a criminal incidental civil public interest lawsuit in accordance with the law, petitioning Zou and others to bear punitive damages of more than 17 million yuan, and publicly apologized. The court supported all the procuratorial organs' claims.
The procuratorial organs also found that some village clinics, private clinics, and medical and beauty institutions illegally practice medicine and sell expired drugs.
For example, some medical beauty institutions and life beauty institutions in a certain place carry out medical beauty services without obtaining a medical institution practice license or a licensed doctor certificate, use medical devices, narcotics, medical beauty injections without authorization, sell and use expired or "" Sanwu" injections and cosmetics, etc.
The procuratorial organs held public hearings, issued procuratorial suggestions to the health and market supervision departments, urged corresponding penalties for illegally operating medical and beauty institutions, and strengthened the inspection and supervision of the quality of medical and beauty institutions and related beauty products in their jurisdictions.
Relevant administrative organs attach great importance to carrying out special rectification actions for illegal medical and cosmetic services, investigating and punishing 10 cases of illegal operation of cosmetics, and banning 15 medical and beauty institutions and life beauty institutions operating without licenses.
Third, the illegal addition of health products and false propaganda problems are prominent.
The procuratorial organs found that some producers and operators illegally added ingredients that were explicitly prohibited to be added to health care products, carried out false propaganda in various ways, and made huge profits by fraudulent sales.
For example, Lu, Zhang and others purchased the "three no" health products containing the western medicine ingredient metformin hydrochloride of unknown origin, packaged them by themselves, and falsely claimed that the product was pure traditional Chinese medicine and had the effect of reducing sugar, and deceived many patients with high blood sugar to buy and take it. .
The procuratorial organ filed a criminal incidental civil public interest lawsuit in accordance with the law, taking into account the serious subjective faults of Lu, Zhang and others, bad means of breaking the law, special victim groups, and long-lasting illegal acts, and requested to bear ten times the punitive damages of 9.8 million yuan. Obtained a court decision.
In the next step, the procuratorial organs will further implement the decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee, actively play the role of public interest litigation procuratorial functions, promote collaborative governance by means of the rule of law, and effectively ensure the "safety on the tip of the tongue" of the people.
First, carry out in-depth special supervision activities of "Public Interest Litigation to Protect a Better Life", continue to focus on outstanding issues in the field of food and drug safety, and further increase case handling efforts.
The second is to strengthen communication with administrative agencies such as market supervision, agriculture and rural areas, and drug supervision, deepen the cooperation and cooperation mechanism, implement the case consultation and joint meeting system, and jointly build a food and drug safety protection barrier.
The third is to strengthen the analysis, summary, research and judgment of similar cases, sort out and summarize the problems existing in public interest litigation case handling and administrative supervision in the field of food and drug safety in a timely manner, and take effective measures to promote the coordinated and co-governance of food and drug safety.