Parents protest over child drug scandal

Hundreds of angry parents demonstrated in front of the Shaanxi provincial government on Thursday, as a second kindergarten in Xi'an was found to be secretly giving children antiviral drugs.

Hongji Xincheng Kindergarten became the second found to be giving children moroxydine hydrochloride to prevent them getting sick, thus avoiding refunding parents for days the child did not attend, The Beijing News reported.

Hongji Xincheng Kindergarten and Fengyun Kindergarten, both under the Shaanxi Provincial Soong Ching Ling Foundation, have the same legal representative, Sun Xuehong, who has been arrested by police.

The Shaanxi Provincial Soong Ching Ling Foundation said they had no knowledge of the kindergartens' actions, the Legal Mirror reported.

Tong Zeng, a director of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, confirmed to the Global Times that they had no executive or business relationship with the Shaanxi Provincial Soong Ching Ling Foundation.

Parents of the children in Hongji Xincheng Kindergarten gathered in front of the kindergarten Wednesday morning, according to posts and photos published by Net users at the scene. Seven parents were reportedly taken away by police.

The parents joined up with counterparts from Fengyun Kindergarten, the first one found giving children the drugs, then decided to block nearby roads on Wednesday evening.

They were confronted by nearly 1,000 policemen and dispersed at 10 pm, Net users said.

On Thursday morning, around 700 parents from both kindergartens demonstrated at a public square in front of the provincial government.

An official from the provincial government asked the parents to be patient and take their children for health checks first, the mother of a 6-year-old boy attending Fengyun Kindergarten told the Global Times.

The Xi'an government on Tuesday promised to look into the scandal and notify the parents of the results as soon as possible. The government also said it will offer free physical examinations for children with symptoms. However, parents said they were disappointed with the investigation process and the way the government was handling the matter.

Another mother surnamed Du, whose son attended Fengyun Kindergarten for three years, said the Xi'an Children's Hospital was the only site designated by the government for free tests. She said that parents were not allowed to obtain the test results at the site.

"The hospital collected all the results and said they will publish them later," Du said, "That makes the parents worry about the authenticity of the results."

Zhang said other hospitals, such as Xijing Hospital, the largest hospital in Xi'an, refused to offer health checks for the children. "The doctor said they can't do tests because the machines were broken," Zhang said. She suspected that the hospitals were under pressure from the local government to keep the scandal low-profile.

On Wednesday, the education department of Shaanxi province said schools must get government permission to give medicines to students.