Former China Drug Regulator to Be Executed
China’s former drug regulator has been sentenced to death for taking bribes and allowing substandard medicines to be approved, causing the deaths of at least 10 people and the contamination of pet foods and toothpaste whose ingredients or products have been exported by China.
Written by ~J~BEIJING (AP) - China’s former top drug regulator was sentenced to death Tuesday in an unusually harsh punishment for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.
Seeking to address broadening concerns over food, the government also announced plans for its first recall system for unsafe products.The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods—from pet food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.
Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu of taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 while he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Those bribes allowed eight companies to get around drug approval standards, it said.
Zheng’s acts “greatly undermined … the efficiency of China’s drug monitoring and supervision, endangered public life and health and had a very negative social impact,” Xinhua said, citing the court.
The punishment was appropriate given the “huge amount of bribes involved and the great damage inflicted on the country and the public,” Xinhua said.
In one instance, an antibiotic approved by Zheng’s agency killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market.
Under Chinese law, a death sentence meted out by an intermediate court automatically will be reviewed by a higher court and ultimately has to be approved by the state supreme court.
The sentence was unusually heavy even for China, which is believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined—and likely indicates the leadership’s determination to deal with the recent scares involving unsafe food and drugs.
