Medicine distribution may be crime, experts say

As the investigation continued into two private kindergartens that allegedly gave prescription medicine to their students, law experts said on March 20 that the case might fall under the crime of endangering public safety.

Zhang Jianrong, an associate professor at Shaanxi Police Professional College, told China Daily that the alleged distribution of unauthorized prescription medicine to hundreds of children seemed to fit the description of that crime under Chinese law.

Kindergarten officials may not be the only ones facing discipline, he said.

"If the investigation shows that officials of the regulatory health, education and drug supervision authorities were guilty of flawed supervision, that may constitute dereliction of duty," said Zhang, an expert who has studied criminal law for 24 years.

On March 10, a number of angry parents in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, went to one of the private kindergartens, Fengyun Kindergarten, and demanded to be told why the drug, guanidine hydrochloride, was given to their children.

The local government soon intervened in the case, and the subsequent investigation showed that another kindergarten, with the same owner as Fengyun Kindergarten, also allegedly gave drugs to the students.

The preliminary investigation showed that the two kindergartens, with a combined enrollment this school year of 1,455 children, started to give drugs to the children in 2008.

Police have detained five officials from the two kindergartens, including the owner, managers and care physicians.

The provincial education department issued an emergency notification on March 12 that told schools and kindergartens not to mass-distribute medicine to their students without authorization.

A mother surnamed Wang said that her 4-year-old son attended the Fengyun Kindergarten regularly, and his health examination was normal.

"We had sent managers and teachers to the two kindergartens to take over the schools and arranged for the children to have health examinations," said Huang Xiaohua, deputy secretary-general of the Xi'an city government.

The children who had anomalous health examination results will have further government checkups and treatment, Huang said.