Official’s death sentence a warning – paper

“BEIJING – China said on Thursday that the death sentence given to the former head of its drug and food watchdog for corruption was a warning to top officials.

Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, faces execution after a Beijing court on convicted him on Tuesday of graft and dereliction of duty.

He left his post before a recent wave of medicine safety scandals engulfed China. But state media have acclaimed the unusually harsh sentence as showing the Communist Party’s determination to purge corruption.”

Man, how would it be if our government made it a goal to send that sort of a message to our FDA???

“Zheng, 62, head of the drug and food agency from 1998 to 2005, took bribes worth some 6.5 million yuan ($850,000) from eight companies.

During his tenure, dozens died in China from fake or bad drugs and food products. In one of the most notorious cases, in 2004, at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui province after being fed fake milk powder with no nutritional value.”

More at the New York Times: China Sentences Former Drug Regulator to Death

“The court accused Mr. Zheng of accepting about $850,000 in bribes in exchange for approving drug production licenses.

Worried that some of those drugs may be substandard, China is now reviewing more than 170,000 production licenses issued by food and drug agency over the past decade.

Some drug experts in China agreed that Mr. Zheng deserved the death sentence because abuses in the drug industry became widespread during his tenure.”

Death Penalty for corruption in the drug industry. Hmmmmm, maybe China is on to something here.
Jenny Hatch