With the drumbeat of disturbing news emanating from and about China, we asked you last week whether pharma should consider a halt to its manufacturing plans or activities, as the case may be. The question was prompted not only by the worsening situation surrounding the FDA’s failure to inspect a Chinese plant that supplied the key ingredient for Baxter’s Heparin, which has been linked to hundreds of serious adverse events and 19 deaths, but a warning from a Rutgers Business School professor, who maintains Congress should impose an embargo on drugs made there.

The question engendered considerable debate (you can see the reader comments here), with some of you saying a ban is impractical, if not unworkable. Most, however, believe China is too much of a risk, at least for the moment. We should note that the poll was not scientific. Meanwhile, Wyeth just announced plans to spend $280 million to build a plant in China to produce infant formula by 2010, “primarily for the local market,” according to its statement.

Yes - 118, votes or 77 percent;
No- 35 votes, or 23 percent
Total Voters - 153