Although controversial, I’m all for tough punishment. Therefore, I would favor the death penalty for those responsible, even if it was a first time offense. In a situation like this where people are dying, you can’t tell me the individuals responsible didn’t know what was going to happen. However, as sad as it is, I’m not sure the death penalty would be an effective deterrent. Some people will still take the risks to make a few more bucks, and if caught, (with something like this) it is easy to play dumb and might be hard to prove prior knowledge of the counterfeit drugs.

I don’t think the death penalty in the US effectively deters violent crimes such as murder. For criminals with the psychological capabilities of murder, death is not a big fear and is not going to stop them. And as far as death as a punishment, I sometimes think death is the easy way out for paying for a crime. The death penalty threat might be a little different in China because of their cultural, societal, and government differences. But it probably still won’t make a huge difference. It’s kind of scary to think of what our world has come to and where things might go considering the threat of death can’t even stop crimes from happening.

This is a big deal in China and I think (hope) they know they have a huge branding problem on their hands and they need to get on top of this quickly. See, e.g., this NY Times article, “An Export Boom Suddenly Facing a Quality Crisis.”

Fifteen years ago, “Made in China” meant really poor quality products in the eyes of most (all?) US consumers. But recently they have made good progress to get over this quality perception hurdle on some fronts (e.g., Lenovo, Haier, other, etc.), so as I note above this type of PR for China and its supply chain is a brand killer.

My reference to poor uneducated peasant women/moms was not to suggest they were at fault or responsible in any way, but to highlight that they simply had no knowledge what was making their babies sick and the more sick the kids became, the more fake formula they fed them. Whereas perhaps an educated mother in the West “might” have known or suspected something was amiss from a feeding standpoint or would have been in the position to take their kid to the hospital right away to find out what was up. These poor uneducated rural women either had no such knowledge and/or no such option due to their financial state. A real tragedy.

Let me ask you and your classmates a controversial policy question ….

Would you favor the death penalty (for first time offense) for those responsible at firms that manufactured counterfeit infant formula (or the poison toothpaste in Panama that has been tracked to China) as a possible way to deter this? And even if you did so would it work as an effective deterrent? As a benchmark, does the death penalty in the US effectively deter violent crime such as murder? What does the research show (hint: it shows that the death penalty in the US has been an abysmal failure on nearly all fronts)? But would China be different due to cultural and societal and governmental differences?

It is one thing to counterfeit clothing and sneakers. It’s entirely different when the counterfeiting involves human life. One aspect of the problem is the counterfieters who pass on their substances as being legitimate. But other aspects of the problem, as the article alludes to, are the lax testing measures. The gyclol passed through numerous hands and was never tested to confirm its authenticity. More thorough and stringent Chinese FDA procedures would help, but other countries’ FDAs and port authorities need to do more stringent examinations.

Something needs to be done to help counteract this, because lives are at stake, and consumers should have no reason to suspect that what they are purchasing is not what it claims to be.

This reminds me of the not too distant infant milk formula scandal in China. As I remember acompany sold fake/counterfeit infant formula. Mothers could not figure out why there babies kept withering away. They kept feeding the babies more and more formula, and their babies kept getting thinner and weaker … and died.

As I remember, most of these mothers were uneducated peasants. They just did not know what was up or know better ….