Chinese police have detained the chairwoman of a pharmaceutical company which distributed hundreds of thousands of faulty vaccines to medical centres, as censors stepped in to curb discussion about a scandal that has provoked nationwide anger.
Gao Junfang was detained along with five other company executives from Changsheng Bio-tech, the company confirmed in a statement on Tuesday. The detentions came hours after Chinese president Xi Jinping declared that the drugmaker had broken laws and regulations.
Netizens on China’s social media have been outraged by the scandal, which has damaged confidence in domestic drug companies. “How can we live in an environment without food and drug safety?” Chinese gymnast Liu Xuan wrote on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.