Although branded drugs usually have more secure supply chains than those of generics, major pharmaceutical companies have moved aggressively into China in recent years and often rely on rarely inspected suppliers.
Lawlor – who has focused on fire and building safety in Bangladesh since 2010, when a factory fire near Dhaka killed more than 25 people – says Gap is bringing in professional engineers to inspect supplier factories and also is following up with remediation.
Baxter inspected the supplier's U.S. facility and its China plant last year, and both have good records in terms of safety and quality, the company said.
Nike says that it can't control who inspects a supplier's factory, and that it wouldn't normally assist an outside group like the WRC.
Page B3 PRAISE FOR APPLE SUPPLIER The president of a nonprofit group hired by Apple to inspect its suppliers' factories has begun praising the Chinese plants of Foxconn, Apple's largest supplier, just days after his group began inspections there.
The president of a nonprofit group hired by Apple to inspect its suppliers' factories began praising the Chinese plants of Foxconn, Apple's largest supplier, just days after his group, the Fair Labor Association, began inspections there, reports Steven Greenhouse on Friday in The New York Times.
The president of a nonprofit group hired by Apple to inspect its suppliers' factories has begun praising the Chinese plants of Foxconn, Apple's largest supplier, just days after his group began inspections there.
Dr. McClellan said the government would need "several hundred million dollars a year" to police imports, inspect foreign suppliers and test imported medicines.
Apple's announcement on Monday that an outside monitoring group, the Fair Labor Association, has begun inspecting its suppliers' factories in China rekindled a debate over how effective the group has been in eliminating labor abuses.
Raw materials are shipped to the supplier and the supplier inspects them.
Harriet Lamb, director of the Fairtrade Foundation, which inspected the company's suppliers and awarded the mark, said: "This has to be a small step in the right direction.
