There is Justice! You killed my best friend, now you must die. And,anyway, somebody has to take the hit!
May 29, 2007
China Sentences Former Drug Regulator to Death
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI, May 29 — The former head of China’s top food and drug safety agency was sentenced to death today after pleading guilty to charges of corruption and accepting bribes, according to the state-controlled news media.
Zheng Xiaoyu, who served as commissioner of China’s Food and Drug Administration from its founding in 1998 until the middle of 2005, was detained last February as part of a government investigation into corruption at the agency, which is supposed to be the nation’s food and drug watchdog.
The unusually harsh sentence handed down today for Mr. Xiaoyu, 62, comes at a time of heightened concerns about the quality and safety of China’s food and drug system.
Two Chinese companies were accused earlier this year of shipping contaminated pet food ingredients to the United States, touching off one of the largest pet food recalls in American history and leading to pressure on China to overhaul its food export controls.
The Chinese government is also investigating how diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical sometimes used in antifreeze, ended up in cough medicine and toothpaste sold in Latin America.
In Panama, more than 100 people died last year after consuming cough medicine laced with diethylene glycol, which had been shipped from China mislabeled as harmless syrup.
Last week, Chinese-made toothpaste tainted with the chemical was pulled off store shelves in Panama, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
The pet food and toothpaste recalls are beginning to pose a serious threat to China’s growing food and drug exports, and have already led to international calls for new testing and screening methods for Chinese-made goods.
But the trial of the former director of the nation’s food and drug watchdog agency suggests that the problems in China are even more serious than that.
Every year, thousands of people here are sickened or killed by phony or counterfeit drugs and tainted food.
For instance, last year 11 people died in China after being given adulterated injections. Six more died and 80 others fell ill after taking an antibiotic that was produced with what regulators later said was a “substandard disinfectant.”
Mass food poisonings are common in China — 56 people were sickened in Guangdong province this week by tainted meat — and drug manufacturers, especially smaller ones, have been accused for years of selling phony or substandard drugs to the nation’s hospitals and pharmacies.
Just this week, the state-controlled news media in Shanghai said that the city’s food and drug safety agency was recalling drugs made by three companies that were not registered with the government. Authorities in Beijing have announced a series of measures in recent weeks aimed at strengthening food and drug safety and cracking down on counterfeiting.
Today, the government said it was preparing to release its first regulation on nationwide food recalls.
The government also said it would initiate new rules to stop food products from being illegally exported, bypassing food inspections.
In announcing the death sentence today, Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court said that Mr. Zheng was convicted of taking bribes and of dereliction of duty, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency.
Xinhua reported that the court deemed the death sentence appropriate, given the “huge amount of bribes involved and the great damage inflicted on the country and the public by Zheng’s dereliction of duty.”
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 over 170,000 production licenses issued by food and drug agency over the past decade.
Some drug experts in China said the Mr. Zheng’s death sentence is appropriate because the entire structure of the drug industry was “screwed up” during Mr. Zheng’s tenure.
“The death penalty wouldn’t be excessive punishment for Zheng,” said Wang Yigao, a professor at the Hunan Academy of Sciences. “Zheng was simply using the power given by the state to pursue his personal ambition."
Rascal@TransparencyEqualsJustice.com |
