BBC Learning English Words in the News Drugs scandal hits China

State media in China say police have seized seventy-seven million drug capsules on
suspicion that they were made from industrial waste. They say eighty production lines
have been closed and many people arrested. BBC Correspondent Viv Marsh reports:

The mass confiscations of suspect capsules show the authorities' determination to be
seen to be acting promptly after the scandal was uncovered a week ago.
Chinese television reported then that several companies were making drug capsules from
industrial gelatin, containing potentially toxic levels of chromium and retrieved from
discarded scraps of leather.

The safety of food and drugs is a constant public worry in China, with frequent outcries
over fake medicines and substandard products. Government investigators have now
been sent to Zhejiang, Hebei and Jiangxi provinces; state media said large amounts of
industrial gelatin were confiscated there and in the province of Shandong.
Among those detained are a local official and a sales manager from Hebei, who are
suspected of ordering a factory to be burned down to destroy the evidence.