BEIJING - China acknowledged it was misleading for Chinese companies to label an industrial solvent as glycerin but blamed businesses in Panama for the poison turning up in cold medicine there, killing at least 51 people.
Wei Chuanzhong, a senior official in China's product-inspection agency, also dismissed concerns about Chinese toothpaste made with the same substance -- diethylene glycol.
There is "no sound evidence" to indicate that the chemical is dangerous in very low concentrations, Wei said, suggesting that the seized Chinese brands had safe amounts of the chemical.
Panama and at least three other Latin American countries have seized tens of thousands of tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste sold under the brands "Excel" and "Mr. Cool."
The United States halted all imports of Chinese toothpaste last week to test for diethylene glycol -- a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid.
Wei's remarks were China's highest-level public comment on the cold medicine case, the most disturbing in a series of scandals concerning tainted or unsafe food, medicines and other Chinese exports.
The growing international outcry has Beijing worried that its goods could be banned from overseas markets. China's dismal drug safety record was underscored this week by a Chinese court's decision to sentence to death the country's former top drug regulator.
China admits it was the source of the deadly chemical that ended up in cough syrup and other treatments but insists the chemical was originally labeled as for industrial use only.
Wei acknowledged that the Chinese manufacturer, Taixing Glycerin Factory, and the Chinese distributor, CNSC Fortune Way, "engaged in some misconduct," because they used the name "TD glycerin" for a mix of 15 percent diethylene glycol and "other substances."
Diethylene glycol, or DEG, is a thickening agent used as a low-cost -- but frequently deadly -- substitute for glycerin, a sweetener commonly used in drugs.
"They used the very confusing name of TD glycerin, which will mislead people to think it's glycerin," Wei said. "The markings on the package also used the name glycerin instead of TD glycerin."
But he said the Panama traders bore most of the responsibility for the deadly substance ending up in medicine.
"The Panama trader changed or altered the paperwork to say the substance was medical glycerin that met U.S. standards for use in medical products and changed the shelf life of the already expired product from one year to four years," Wei said. "The responsibility here is very clear."
His agency began investigating the matter in October at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and conducted a follow-up earlier this month.
Those inquiries found that 25,020 pounds of so-called TD glycerin made by the Taixing Glycerin Factory in eastern China's Jiangsu province was sold by state-owned distributor CNSC Fortune Way to Spain's Rasfer company in July 2003 for $10,250.
Rasfer told the agency that the Chinese sellers made it clear that the material they were sold was for industrial, not medical, use.
The FDA found the material was later resold to a Panamanian company, which relabeled it as medical glycerin and changed its shelf life to four years from one. It was finally sold to Panama's national health system, which used it make cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment.
Wei, the vice minister of China's Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said Taixing had been punished but when pressed for details, he said the company was still being investigated.
He said China would not continue to allow the use of the name TD glycerin, but no ban has been formally announced.
The first documented poisonings in Panama were reported in October, but authorities there have said that earlier cases may have gone undetected. Fifty-one people died after taking the tainted medications and 68 were hospitalized.
A slew of Chinese exports have recently been banned or turned away by U.S. inspectors including, wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine that has been blamed for dog and cat deaths in North America, monkfish that turned out to be toxic pufferfish, drug-laced frozen eel, and juice made with unsafe color additives.
On Tuesday, a Beijing court sentenced to death the former director of China's food and drug administration, for taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 in return for allowing eight companies to get around drug approval rules.
State media have reported that drugs improperly approved by Zheng's agency included an antibiotic that killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market.
