Law Offices of E&Sasseen

(Page 2)
Sha Yun and I were very excited by now. We felt we were on the right track and should be able to get hold of the antitoxin very soon. We discussed how to get the antitoxin shipped to Xinjiang. There are three ways of shipment, by UPS, by FedEx, or by airlines. We thought the best way was to ship the antitoxin to Beijing first, rather than to Xinjiang directly. Sha Yun would contact D’Long’s people in Beijing, who would pick up the antitoxin from Beijing and put it on the next flight to Xinjiang. This way, we had control of the transfer in Beijing.

At about 10 pm Pacific Standard time or 1:00 am in Atlanta, Georgia, A Dr. John Crump with CDC in Georgia called. Dr. Crump told me that the antitoxin works best with 72 hours after food poison. After that period of time, it may or may not work. He warned me that the medicine may cause some allergic reaction to infected people. He said that although CDC had the antitoxin, CDC could only supple it to people in the United States. He said that we could buy it directly from the manufacturers. He would fax me a list of manufacturers with their contact information. Dr. Crump gave me his pager number and told me to page him anytime if I had any questions.

I received the fax from Dr. Crump about 15 minutes later with information of the following companies: Cannaught Labs in Pennsylvania, U.S., Biomed in Poland, Behring in Germany, and Chiba Serum Institute in Japan.

Sha Yun and I thought we hit the jackpot this time. Sha Yun told me to go to bed now and she would call the manufacturers. I wanted to make sure that we got it that night. Although it was almost 10:30 pm, it was the morning next day in Germany and Poland, and afternoon in Japan. It seemed very hopeful now that we might be able to get it and had it shipped to China that night. We decided to split the duties. Sha Yun would call the US manufacturer and I would call the German one. We were little bit concerned about what payment method any of the manufacturer would accept. I thought they might take my credit card. Anyway, I thought that we should be able to solve this problem. If not, I could ask one of my husband’s friends in Europe to pay for it first.

Dr. John Crump called again to make sure I received the fax. I told him everything was fine and I was going to call Behring in Germany. But, when I looked at the list to find the phone number of the German company, I realized it was not listed. Only the fax number was listed. I got on Internet to search for the phone number of this company and found one. I called the number I found. The person answering the phone told me that I was calling the wrong place. I should contact Behring’s sale office in Hong Kong if the antitoxin was to be shipped to China.

This was great! If Hong Kong office had it, we could get it shipped to Xinjiang in a few hours. I called Behring’s sales office in Hong Kong. I was told that the Hong Kong office probably did not have it. She was not sure. She would check with her boss and call me back In the mean time, she told me to call Michael Chen, head of Behring’s sales office in Shanghai.

I called Michael Chen in Shanghai. He told me that he did not think Behring in China had such antitoxin. He told me I should talk to Mr. Zhong, Xueshun, Chief Representative of Behring in Beijing. I called Mr. Zhong. His assistance, Ms. Li, Ying, answered the phone. She said Mr. Zhong was not in the office. But she could reach him to find out whether China had it and call me back.

Now all the excitement had turn into disappointment. I tried the US, and Poland manufacturers. None of the phone numbers were correct . I called Japan. The phone number was correct. However, the person answering the phone did not understand much English. I spoke very slowly. He understood me, but told me that the medicine could not be exported out of Japan. It seemed that we hit the dead end. Sha Yun did not have any good news either.

It was about 1 am in the morning of February 28, 2002. I’ve had a long day the day before and another busy day was waiting for me in a few hours. I was very tired and frustrated. We almost found it. Now we got another road block.

I went back on the Internet searching for some other phone numbers to talk to Behring in Germany. For some reason, I could not find any other than the one I found earlier. Finally, I found one of Behring’s sales office in Denmark. So I called. The person answering the phone told me that he was only the sales office and could not sell the antitoxin to China. I told him I knew that. I was hoping he could tell me how to reach Behring in Germany. He gave me a number but he was not sure if it was correct. He told me I could call him back if the phone number was not the correct one. He would help me to find another phone number.

I called the number I got from the Dane. It was Behring’s number all right. The person answering the phone transferred me to some one who was not at her desk to answer my call. I called the Behring’s operator again. This time, she transferred me to another person who take notes and told me someone would call me back. Fearing no one would call back, I offered to hold the line until he found the right person for me to talk to. He told me not to worry, someone would call me back even it was an international call.

Li, Ying, Mr. Zhong’s assistant in Beijing, called me back. This is another example of how everyone I talked to actually helped in the search for the antitoxin. Honestly, I did not think she would ever call me back. She had confirmed with Mr. Zhong that China indeed did not have such medicine and China may not allow any import of it. She said that a letter from local government might be helpful in getting around this problem. She did not have Behiring’s phone number in Germany. Instead, she gave me Mr. Diderrich’s phone number, who is an engineer at Behring and a friend of Mr. Zhong’s.

While waiting to be called back from Behring, I called Mr. Diderrich who told me to write an e-mail explaining the situation. He would forward it to appropriate people within Behring.

There was not much to do except to wait for 2 of the Behring people to call me back. I decided to take a short nap in a sleeping bag on the floor so that I was close to the phone and the notes I took through the evening.

The phone started ringing before I had time to settle in the sleeping bag. The person on the other side of the line was Mr. Joerg Endermann of Behring. He was misinformed about my last phone call to Behring. He thought I wanted to talk about one of their products that had been on recall. After I explained the situation to him, he said that the antitoxin was the product of another department. He was very nice to offer to find more information for me and would call me back.

A little before 1:30 am, Mr. Endermann called me back. I cannot emphasis enough how much I was moved by the responsiveness of everyone I talked with that evening. Mr. Endermann told me that Behring did make such antitoxin. However, it was out of stock. He said he had asked people there to look and see if they could find some in the company. While we were talking on the phone, another phone rang on his side. He told me to hold while he answered the other call. After he hung up that phone, he told me the good news: his people had found the antitoxin. He asked me to give him the shipping address.

I called Sha Yun with the great news. It was hard for us to believe that we actually found it, within such short period of time. We agreed that the shipment should be made to Beijing, not to Urumqi. I sent an e-mail to Mr. Endermann with the mailing address, also to confirm that we’ve got the right antitoxin with the correct quantity. I called Mr. Endermann after a few minutes to make sure he had received the message and everything was correct. Mr. Endermann told me that while waiting for my response, his people had packed the bottles, called a taxi and reserved the next flight from Frankfurt to Beijing. He told me that his company was about 80 kilometers away from Frankfurt. A taxi would pick the package, and deliver the package to the airport. As for the quantity, he said that each infected people normally need 2-3 bottles of the antitoxin. They packed 18 bottles for six people which should be sufficient. I was very impressed with the efficiency of the Germans. I was also impressed with the fact that Mr. Endermann never asked me if I had money to pay for the antitoxin. He didn’t ask for any deposit or assurance of payment. When I asked him about how to pay him, he told me to give him my address. He would send an invoice to me. He said it was about 30,000 EURO.

I talked to Sha Yun again to give her the latest report. She had not got any sleep since she received the phone call from China about 22 hours ago. She is an amazing person. We were discussing back and forth about every details on how to pick up the package in Beijing and ship it to Xinjiang. I remembered the warning from Mr. Zhong’s assistant that Chinese customs may not allow it into China. I suggested that Sha Yun called Mr. Zhong again to make sure there would not be any problems at the customs. It was a little after 2 am. I thought my job was done and went to bed, not knowing that another set back was awaiting us.

About 15 minutes later, my cell phone rang. Sha Yun told me some very alarming news. Mr. Zhong told her that there was only 1% chance for us to clear the customs to get the package into China. Chinese government prohibits import of such products. Mr. Zhong suggested that we ship the package to Urumqi directly. Since there is not any direct flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Urumqi, Xinjiang, the package would have been transferred at the Beijing Airport. We would not have the control of the package during the transfer. It could take a few days before it eventually reached Urumqi. On the other hand, the package could be held at the customs in Beijing for up to 6 days. Sending it to Urumqi might be a better choice.

I called Mr. Endermann again immediately after I hang up with Sha Yun. Mr. Endermann called the person taking care of the logistics of the package to join our phone call. Both of them felt strongly that if we explained the situation to the customs in Beijing, the customs should be flexible and let the package in to save 6 lives. They both believed that the choice we made before was the fastest one and we should stick with it. They told me that the name of the medicine was not written on the label. The package was labeled as “Life & Death Shipment.” They also told me that they only put 900 EURO as the value of the package, which is much smaller than the real value. We discussed whether we should change the value to 100 EURO. I explained to them I did not want anything on the label which might attract customs attention. Eventually, they said the taxi was almost ready to leave and we should not make any changes to the label on the package. The plane was going to leave Frankfort at about 5 pm German time and arrive Beijing Airport at 9:30 am on 2/28/02.

When I called Sha Yun back, we spent a lot of time analyzing what might happen at the customs in Beijing and how we should prepare for each situation. We decided that D’Long should do two things: 1 contact Xijiang government who should then contact the appropriate agencies in the central government to get appropriate paperwork; and 2. contact the major news media in Beijing. If we run into problems at the customs, the news media could put pressure on the government.

I slept for about 3 hours before my cell phone rang again. This time it was an attorney at Square Sanders in Cleveland. She received Sandy’s message and wanted to discuss with me on how to proceed.

I felt very bad on the morning of 2/28/02, tortured by the thought I screwed up at the last step. Why didn’t I slow down after learning that Behring had the antitoxin? I could have called my cousin in Frankfurt, Germany and asked him if he knew anyone going to Beijing and have that person hand carry the package. Why didn’t I think about sending the package to Urumqi directly to avoid possible problems at the Beijing airport? Any delay at the Beijing airport might destroy any hope we had to save these lives in Xinjiang.

I called Sha Yun later to get the latest status report. She said D’Long people in Beijing was fully prepared to handle the customs, and the news media had been notified of the problems. She said that her people were optimistic and confident that they could get the package out of customs without any problems. She also learned that the condition of one of the 2 teenagers had deteriorated. His vision was getting blurred. Another adult could not eat or speak.

The package containing life saving antitoxin cleared the customs at the Beijing Airport and arrived at Urumqi at about 8 pm local time on 2/28/02. The antitoxin worked very well and as of 3/27/02, all of the infected people except one have been released from the hospital. Zhang, Yu, whose younger brother died before the antitoxin was found, is still on respirator. Her overall condition has improved but no one knows if she will ever be able to breathe on her own. Let’s hope for the best.

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Links BCIS Website BCIS Forms Visa Bulletin	(Page 2) Sha Yun and I were very excited by now. We felt we were on the right track and should be able to get hold of the antitoxin very soon. We discussed how to get the antitoxin shipped to Xinjiang. There are three ways of shipment, by UPS, by FedEx, or by airlines. We thought the best way was to ship the antitoxin to Beijing first, rather than to Xinjiang directly. Sha Yun would contact D’Long’s people in Beijing, who would pick up the antitoxin from Beijing and put it on the next flight to Xinjiang. This way, we had control of the transfer in Beijing. At about 10 pm Pacific Standard time or 1:00 am in Atlanta, Georgia, A Dr. John Crump with CDC in Georgia called. Dr. Crump told me that the antitoxin works best with 72 hours after food poison. After that period of time, it may or may not work. He warned me that the medicine may cause some allergic reaction to infected people. He said that although CDC had the antitoxin, CDC could only supple it to people in the United States. He said that we could buy it directly from the manufacturers. He would fax me a list of manufacturers with their contact information. Dr. Crump gave me his pager number and told me to page him anytime if I had any questions. I received the fax from Dr. Crump about 15 minutes later with information of the following companies: Cannaught Labs in Pennsylvania, U.S., Biomed in Poland, Behring in Germany, and Chiba Serum Institute in Japan. Sha Yun and I thought we hit the jackpot this time. Sha Yun told me to go to bed now and she would call the manufacturers. I wanted to make sure that we got it that night. Although it was almost 10:30 pm, it was the morning next day in Germany and Poland, and afternoon in Japan. It seemed very hopeful now that we might be able to get it and had it shipped to China that night. We decided to split the duties. Sha Yun would call the US manufacturer and I would call the German one. We were little bit concerned about what payment method any of the manufacturer would accept. I thought they might take my credit card. Anyway, I thought that we should be able to solve this problem. If not, I could ask one of my husband’s friends in Europe to pay for it first. Dr. John Crump called again to make sure I received the fax. I told him everything was fine and I was going to call Behring in Germany. But, when I looked at the list to find the phone number of the German company, I realized it was not listed. Only the fax number was listed. I got on Internet to search for the phone number of this company and found one. I called the number I found. The person answering the phone told me that I was calling the wrong place. I should contact Behring’s sale office in Hong Kong if the antitoxin was to be shipped to China. This was great! If Hong Kong office had it, we could get it shipped to Xinjiang in a few hours. I called Behring’s sales office in Hong Kong. I was told that the Hong Kong office probably did not have it. She was not sure. She would check with her boss and call me back In the mean time, she told me to call Michael Chen, head of Behring’s sales office in Shanghai. I called Michael Chen in Shanghai. He told me that he did not think Behring in China had such antitoxin. He told me I should talk to Mr. Zhong, Xueshun, Chief Representative of Behring in Beijing. I called Mr. Zhong. His assistance, Ms. Li, Ying, answered the phone. She said Mr. Zhong was not in the office. But she could reach him to find out whether China had it and call me back. Now all the excitement had turn into disappointment. I tried the US, and Poland manufacturers. None of the phone numbers were correct . I called Japan. The phone number was correct. However, the person answering the phone did not understand much English. I spoke very slowly. He understood me, but told me that the medicine could not be exported out of Japan. It seemed that we hit the dead end. Sha Yun did not have any good news either. It was about 1 am in the morning of February 28, 2002. I’ve had a long day the day before and another busy day was waiting for me in a few hours. I was very tired and frustrated. We almost found it. Now we got another road block. I went back on the Internet searching for some other phone numbers to talk to Behring in Germany. For some reason, I could not find any other than the one I found earlier. Finally, I found one of Behring’s sales office in Denmark. So I called. The person answering the phone told me that he was only the sales office and could not sell the antitoxin to China. I told him I knew that. I was hoping he could tell me how to reach Behring in Germany. He gave me a number but he was not sure if it was correct. He told me I could call him back if the phone number was not the correct one. He would help me to find another phone number. I called the number I got from the Dane. It was Behring’s number all right. The person answering the phone transferred me to some one who was not at her desk to answer my call. I called the Behring’s operator again. This time, she transferred me to another person who take notes and told me someone would call me back. Fearing no one would call back, I offered to hold the line until he found the right person for me to talk to. He told me not to worry, someone would call me back even it was an international call. Li, Ying, Mr. Zhong’s assistant in Beijing, called me back. This is another example of how everyone I talked to actually helped in the search for the antitoxin. Honestly, I did not think she would ever call me back. She had confirmed with Mr. Zhong that China indeed did not have such medicine and China may not allow any import of it. She said that a letter from local government might be helpful in getting around this problem. She did not have Behiring’s phone number in Germany. Instead, she gave me Mr. Diderrich’s phone number, who is an engineer at Behring and a friend of Mr. Zhong’s. While waiting to be called back from Behring, I called Mr. Diderrich who told me to write an e-mail explaining the situation. He would forward it to appropriate people within Behring. There was not much to do except to wait for 2 of the Behring people to call me back. I decided to take a short nap in a sleeping bag on the floor so that I was close to the phone and the notes I took through the evening. The phone started ringing before I had time to settle in the sleeping bag. The person on the other side of the line was Mr. Joerg Endermann of Behring. He was misinformed about my last phone call to Behring. He thought I wanted to talk about one of their products that had been on recall. After I explained the situation to him, he said that the antitoxin was the product of another department. He was very nice to offer to find more information for me and would call me back. A little before 1:30 am, Mr. Endermann called me back. I cannot emphasis enough how much I was moved by the responsiveness of everyone I talked with that evening. Mr. Endermann told me that Behring did make such antitoxin. However, it was out of stock. He said he had asked people there to look and see if they could find some in the company. While we were talking on the phone, another phone rang on his side. He told me to hold while he answered the other call. After he hung up that phone, he told me the good news: his people had found the antitoxin. He asked me to give him the shipping address. I called Sha Yun with the great news. It was hard for us to believe that we actually found it, within such short period of time. We agreed that the shipment should be made to Beijing, not to Urumqi. I sent an e-mail to Mr. Endermann with the mailing address, also to confirm that we’ve got the right antitoxin with the correct quantity. I called Mr. Endermann after a few minutes to make sure he had received the message and everything was correct. Mr. Endermann told me that while waiting for my response, his people had packed the bottles, called a taxi and reserved the next flight from Frankfurt to Beijing. He told me that his company was about 80 kilometers away from Frankfurt. A taxi would pick the package, and deliver the package to the airport. As for the quantity, he said that each infected people normally need 2-3 bottles of the antitoxin. They packed 18 bottles for six people which should be sufficient. I was very impressed with the efficiency of the Germans. I was also impressed with the fact that Mr. Endermann never asked me if I had money to pay for the antitoxin. He didn’t ask for any deposit or assurance of payment. When I asked him about how to pay him, he told me to give him my address. He would send an invoice to me. He said it was about 30,000 EURO. I talked to Sha Yun again to give her the latest report. She had not got any sleep since she received the phone call from China about 22 hours ago. She is an amazing person. We were discussing back and forth about every details on how to pick up the package in Beijing and ship it to Xinjiang. I remembered the warning from Mr. Zhong’s assistant that Chinese customs may not allow it into China. I suggested that Sha Yun called Mr. Zhong again to make sure there would not be any problems at the customs. It was a little after 2 am. I thought my job was done and went to bed, not knowing that another set back was awaiting us. About 15 minutes later, my cell phone rang. Sha Yun told me some very alarming news. Mr. Zhong told her that there was only 1% chance for us to clear the customs to get the package into China. Chinese government prohibits import of such products. Mr. Zhong suggested that we ship the package to Urumqi directly. Since there is not any direct flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Urumqi, Xinjiang, the package would have been transferred at the Beijing Airport. We would not have the control of the package during the transfer. It could take a few days before it eventually reached Urumqi. On the other hand, the package could be held at the customs in Beijing for up to 6 days. Sending it to Urumqi might be a better choice. I called Mr. Endermann again immediately after I hang up with Sha Yun. Mr. Endermann called the person taking care of the logistics of the package to join our phone call. Both of them felt strongly that if we explained the situation to the customs in Beijing, the customs should be flexible and let the package in to save 6 lives. They both believed that the choice we made before was the fastest one and we should stick with it. They told me that the name of the medicine was not written on the label. The package was labeled as “Life & Death Shipment.” They also told me that they only put 900 EURO as the value of the package, which is much smaller than the real value. We discussed whether we should change the value to 100 EURO. I explained to them I did not want anything on the label which might attract customs attention. Eventually, they said the taxi was almost ready to leave and we should not make any changes to the label on the package. The plane was going to leave Frankfort at about 5 pm German time and arrive Beijing Airport at 9:30 am on 2/28/02. When I called Sha Yun back, we spent a lot of time analyzing what might happen at the customs in Beijing and how we should prepare for each situation. We decided that D’Long should do two things: 1 contact Xijiang government who should then contact the appropriate agencies in the central government to get appropriate paperwork; and 2. contact the major news media in Beijing. If we run into problems at the customs, the news media could put pressure on the government. I slept for about 3 hours before my cell phone rang again. This time it was an attorney at Square Sanders in Cleveland. She received Sandy’s message and wanted to discuss with me on how to proceed. I felt very bad on the morning of 2/28/02, tortured by the thought I screwed up at the last step. Why didn’t I slow down after learning that Behring had the antitoxin? I could have called my cousin in Frankfurt, Germany and asked him if he knew anyone going to Beijing and have that person hand carry the package. Why didn’t I think about sending the package to Urumqi directly to avoid possible problems at the Beijing airport? Any delay at the Beijing airport might destroy any hope we had to save these lives in Xinjiang. I called Sha Yun later to get the latest status report. She said D’Long people in Beijing was fully prepared to handle the customs, and the news media had been notified of the problems. She said that her people were optimistic and confident that they could get the package out of customs without any problems. She also learned that the condition of one of the 2 teenagers had deteriorated. His vision was getting blurred. Another adult could not eat or speak. The package containing life saving antitoxin cleared the customs at the Beijing Airport and arrived at Urumqi at about 8 pm local time on 2/28/02. The antitoxin worked very well and as of 3/27/02, all of the infected people except one have been released from the hospital. Zhang, Yu, whose younger brother died before the antitoxin was found, is still on respirator. Her overall condition has improved but no one knows if she will ever be able to breathe on her own. Let’s hope for the best. Prev Prev