Day: January 3, 2023

In Brief

As COVID cases increase across China, Paxlovid – an oral antiviral drug manufactured by Pfizer specifically to treat COVID – has been sold for exorbitant prices on the black market, even as people began to question the efficacy of the “Western medicine.” An article initially posted online and reprinted on major news sites stated that a “Pfizer executive” and “Paxlovid promoter” named Chan died recently of COVID in his 40s, casting doubt on how well Paxlovid treated the disease.

Asia Fact Check Lab found the information to be false. Chan never worked for Pfizer and his condition does not disprove Paxlovid’s established efficacy in treating COVID.

In Depth 

As COVID cases sprouted across China in December 2022, Paxlovid became a hot commodity. Beijing’s municipal government said it would begin supplying Paxlovid to community hospitals and include the drug in medical insurance. However, given the short supply and intransparent distribution system, many sick residents in need have been unable to get a prescription.

Many voices on Weibo question Paxlovid’s usefulness, claiming that the drug’s approval process is haphazard and its efficacy unknown. Others allege that including Paxlovid in health insurance plans is a conspiracy by Western capitalists to “empty the treasury.” 

Did a Pfizer executive die from COVID? 

On Dec. 26, a short news article headlined, “Pfizer executive in his 40s passes away from COVID,” spread rapidly across the internet and was soon republished by various news outlets. The article’s text reads, “Ho Kit Chan (陈可杰), head of Pfizer’s marketing department in Shanghai, passed away at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai due to a COVID infection. Before his death, he spared no effort to promote Pfizer’s COVID treatments.” The text was accompanied by a portrait of Chan and a screenshot of an internal email stating that “Ho Kit Chan, head of clinical operations in China,” had died from an illness. The news has since been used as evidence that Paxlovid is ineffective.

AFCL was able to confirm that Chan died due to complications arising from COVID on Dec. 22. But the pharmaceutical company executive had never worked for Pfizer nor in any way promoted the company’s COVID treatments. Public records verify that Chan did work at several multinational drug companies during his career, eventually serving as head of clinical operations at the Bristol Myers Squibb’s China branch, a well-known pharmaceutical company referenced in the screenshot from the internal email featured in the original article which started the rumor. 

Is there any evidence that Paxlovid is ineffective at treating COVID? 

The news about Chan was removed by most websites after being dispelled by pharmaceutical industry sources and major news outlets. However, screenshots from the articles continue to circulate online via social media accounts with millions of followers. For example, two posts declare that “Pfizer’s drugs can’t save Pfizer’s executives” and “Could a million people have died in the U.S. if the drug [Paxlovid] worked?” 

Although Chan’s health and medical history are unknown, his case cannot be used as evidence that Paxlovid is ineffective at treating COVID.

In fact several studies have shown that Paxlovid is an effective treatment. In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of Paxlovid to reduce the risk of serious illness and death in patients over 12 at high risk of catching COVID. China approved domestic marketing of the drug in February. In April, the World Health Organization strongly recommended that COVID patients at high risk of serious illness use Paxlovid, based on its own studies that showed use of the drug can reduce the hospitalization risk from COVID by up to 85%. A study by researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong that analyzed data from more than 50,000 COVID patients found that Paxlovid reduced the risk of death by 90%.

AFCL reminds readers that Paxlovid is a prescription drug that should be used as prescribed by a physician.

In honor of the World Cup, the Middle East received its first giant pandas — “Jingjing” and “Sihai” — sent by China as a diplomatic gift honoring the host nation Qatar in November 2022.

The animals — named “Suhail” and “Thuraya” in Arabic — have been housed in a lavish, air-conditioned building in Al Khor Park and Zoo where they can lounge on manicured lawns and eat freshly harvested bamboo while being photographed by crowds of tourists from above.

Just two days after their arrival, Taiwan’s panda Tuan Tuan — gifted to the democratic island in 2008 at a time of warmer ties — was euthanized by a visiting team of expert veterinarians from China after developing a brain lesion.

According to researcher and author Long Yuanzhi, the life stories of China’s “gift” pandas follow the same script — bred in captivity in the southwestern province of Sichuan, shipped out to a foreign country, where they live out their lives in a zoo and are eventually put to sleep.

“Giant pandas are basically wild animals, so they are going to be in captivity regardless of what conditions humans provide for them,” Long said in a recent interview with Radio Free Asia. “Taiwan is a subtropical region, so it isn’t a suitable habitat for pandas.”

“This is pretty obvious, but this fact is ignored by the media, the general public and by governments, who prefer to shift the focus away from animal welfare, animal rights and conservation,” Long said.

Long, who has been to 10 different nature reserves and protected habitats in Sichuan to pursue her research, including the Wolong reserve where Tuan Tuan was born, and the Shenshuping conservation center that bred Jing Jing and Sihai.

$1 million annually

Her recent book, titled “In Search of Zootopia: A frontline documentation of cross-border animal protection,” is packed with her observations of pandas in zoos around the world.

The term “gifts” is something of a misnomer, says Long, explaining that China stopped giving away the creatures in 1982 in favor of 10-year leases framed as “scientific research cooperation” projects.

Zoos wanting to host a pair of pandas are expected to pay around U.S.$1 million annually for the privilege, and are vetted for their financial status before the agreements are signed.

While China says the money goes to fund panda research and conservation work, there is no framework under which host nations can check or observe where their money ends up.

The arrangement has been popular, with zoos happy with the large numbers of visitors that pandas typically attract.

However, with zoos’ finances battered as the COVID-19 pandemic causes a slump in global tourism and visitor numbers, there have been rumors that Finland and Canada are considering sending their pandas back ahead of time.

Tuan Tuan’s personal back-story also highlights wider problems with the panda “gifting” program.

His father Pan Pan was the official mascot of the 1990 Asian Games, and sired more than 130 cubs, more than a quarter of captive pandas by 2017.

Wild pandas

The original group of 46 pandas used to start the captive breeding program were all from the wild, but the narrowing of the gene pool means that the next generation could be at risk of genetic degeneration.

Faced with a genetic dead end from successive generations of captive breeding, China’s panda conservation chief Duan Zhaogang announced in October that the program will start to refocus on reintroducing captive pandas to the wild, and conserving the species in their natural habitat.

But Long doesn’t see how this can work.

“Like other animals, giant pandas raised in captivity often lack the ability to survive in the wild,” she said, citing the death of Xiang Xiang, the first giant panda to be released, in a fight with wild pandas.

The wild population currently stands at just over 1,800, with around 700 giant pandas in captivity around the world.

The vast majority of captive pandas will never be reintroduced, and will live out their lives in zoos, she said.

Another issue that scarcely gets a mention in the cutesy media coverage is that the process of artificial insemination is about as far from natural mating and pair-bonding as it’s possible to get.

“After the male panda is anesthetized, then something like a corn cob is inserted into its anus, and the rectum is electroshocked to make it involuntarily ejaculate,” Long said. “The female panda will also be artificially inseminated under general anesthetic.”

Some pandas have died as a result of the semen extraction procedure, while female pandas have their estrus period manipulated, and are forcibly separated from their cubs a year earlier than they would separate in the wild, so they can be brought back into estrus to conceive once more.

Yet conservation centers still insist on artificial insemination rather than natural breeding to increase the chances of a pregnancy, Long said, citing multiple interviews with staff at those facilities.

Long said the entire panda conservation industry in Sichuan began with attempts to “rescue” wild pandas out of fears they would starve to death amid the large-scale withering of bamboo forests in the 1970s and 1980s.

Communist Party propaganda has always painted the animals as in need of rescue by humans, Long said, citing a government-backed “folk song” about pandas.

“The idea of rescuing them from the wild is absurd, from the perspective of science communication,” she said. “It is an appropriation of natural knowledge and based on false causality.”

“Even today, very few people realize the lessons that this history can teach us.”

Long has come to the conclusion that the opposite is true.

“Giant pandas don’t need humans: humans need giant pandas,” she said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.