China Environmental Law

Here’s a bit of encouraging news from the pharmaceutical-wing of China’s “environmental” regime.  You may recall the story of the poor Greek weight-lifting team that was busted for doping in April after taking “dietary supplements” ordered by the coach from a Chinese “biotechnology” company, Auspure.  As the Shanghai Daily reports, in a refreshingly candid piece (which is especially welcome after the recent blasts of obfuscation from a whole host of official Chinese and IOC spokespeople), the initial Chinese response denying that Auspure bore responsibility “were wrong.”

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in April that overseas media reports on the case were “not compatible with the true situation” but added that “China would continue investigations and was willing to cooperate with Greece to get to the truth.”

China yesterday admitted that medical supplies illegally sold by a Shanghai-based company contained ingredients that caused positive drug-test results for Greece’s weight-lifting team in April.

The admission was a big reversal on previous statements. China said in April that Greek media reports blaming the doping on the Shanghai company were wrong.

Auspure, it turns out, was not all that pure

“Investigations have since found that the Auspure Biotechnology Co did illegally smuggle and sell doping formulas,” Gao Feng, an official of the Supervision Department of the State Food and Drug Administration, told a press conference yesterday.

The company’s business license had been revoked and Shanghai authorities were investigating the case, he said.

The article is not clear on whether the Greek weightlifting team gets to compete in the Olympics

Five men and six women from the Greek team returned positive results for banned substances following the random tests. The entire team could now be disqualified from the Beijing Olympics because of the large number of positive results.

Any one know the status of this?