Officers from the local market regulatory administration confiscate illegal health supplements in Huaibei, Anhui province. Li Xin / For China Daily With his own parents victimized by scammers, man leads fight against bogus health supplements Chen Jie has gone all-in with the battle against fraudsters who prey on the elderly by selling dubious health supplements with exaggerated claims of medical benefits. The 43-year-old quit his job as a wine salesman in June and founded a company in Chengdu, Sichuan province, to help families whose elderly relatives have been trapped in scams. He posts information about how to recognize health supplement frauds on websites, listens to people's complaints, gathers evidence and reports cases to government agencies. He does it all for free, because he knows how affected family members feel - his own parents fell victim to such frauds. Numerous cases have been reported over the years around China, where 16.7 percent of the population is older than 60, and the problem prompted authorities to launch a nationwide crackdown on health supplement frauds in July. The China Food and Drug Administration, now incorporated into the new State Market Regulatory Administration, said on March 15 that the government investigated 12,000 cases of fraud or misleading advertising last year, confiscating illegal products and handing out fines totaling 360 million yuan ($57.3 million). The case of Chen's parents is just one of many. His father, once a soldier, joined a veterans' club in 2008. At first, he was invited to lectures on current affairs at the club, given by military experts, which gave him a sense of belonging. But then, Chen said, his father started bringing home expensive health supplements. Chen checked the products and found they either lacked an approved serial number or had fabricated or expired ones, but his father did not listen to him. Meanwhile, his 70-year-old mother spent 800,000 yuan on various fraudulent investments and ineffective health supplements in just six years. She did not tell her son until she suffered a stroke and became immobile in 2016. lokai rubber braceletwristband custom silicone braceletspersonalized bracelets for girlfriendsilicone wristbands free shippingcustom rubber bracelets
Sanjiangyuan, an area of China's Northwestern Qinghai province, contains the headwaters of three great rivers of Asia: the Yellow, the Yangtze, and the Mekong, Feb 27, 2018. [Photo/VCG] XINING - China has established a research institute for national parks in the city of Xining, the capital of Northwestern Qinghai province. The institute, believed to be the country's first of the kind, will focus its research on issues including biodiversity conservation, bearing capacity of the ecological environment and sustainable use of biological resources, in addition to developing key disciplines such as conservation biology, resource biology and restorable ecology. The institute aims to build a system for monitoring and assessing the ecologic environment and providing early warnings against potential ecological risks. It also plans to build a display platform powered by big data and cloud computing for scientific research and science popularization. The institute, run by a board of directors and led by a director, was co-founded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Qinghai provincial government. The institute will provide scientific guidance and services for Sanjiangyuan national park, in a bid to realize the coordinated development of ecological protection and regional economy, said Zhao Xinquan, the academic director of the institute. The national park in Sanjiangyuan, which literally means the source of three rivers, was established to protect the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang (Mekong) rivers.
