China Sentences Former Food And Drug Safety Chief to Death

[S14DB]

By Daniel Schearf
Beijing
29 May 2007


China has delivered a death sentence to the former head of its food and drug administration, for taking bribes to approve untested medicines. The court case was heard as China faces growing complaints about unsafe drugs and food. Daniel Schearf reports from Beijing.

A Beijing court sentenced Zheng Xiaoyu to death for taking bribes worth over $830,000 while he served as chief of the State Food and Drug Administration.

China's official Xinhua news agency announced the verdict, saying Zheng allowed substandard medicines onto the market in return for cash and gifts. It said one antibiotic approved by the regulator caused at least ten deaths.

Xinhua said the punishment was appropriate given the "huge amount of bribes involved" and the "damage he inflicted on the country and the public."

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, says the sentence reflected the Chinese government's determination to fight corruption.

Jiang says the Chinese government has always attached great importance to the health and safety of consumer goods, especially food and drugs, and is willing to work with the international community to safeguard the quality and reputation of Chinese food products.

China's food safety came under intense scrutiny this past month, after tainted pet food from China killed animals in North America.

In the past week, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Nicaragua have pulled thousands of tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste from store shelves for containing a potentially deadly chemical used in engine coolants.

Poor quality food sickens tens of thousands of people in China every year.

The official China Daily newspaper reported Tuesday that the country will introduce its first food safety recall system by the end of the year.

The newspaper gave no details on how the system would work, but said any companies that failed to follow the new rules would be blacklisted from the Chinese market.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-05-29-voa27.cfm

[S14DB]

China sentences ex-official to death
http://i.cnn.net/money/2007/05/29/news/international/china_death_sentence.reut/zheng_xiaoyu.gi.03.jpg
Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of State Food and Drug Administration, was convicted of accepting bribes from drug companies.
May 29 2007: 10:20 AM EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) -- China on Tuesday sentenced the former head of its food and drugs agency to death for corruption in a surprise judgment as the government sought to contain a wave of scandals over health safety.

Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, was convicted on charges of taking bribes and dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.

The sentence, which was unusually harsh, could still be reduced on appeal. But it reflects the weight China's top leaders are giving to the issues of corruption and food safety as they grapple with the fallout overseas after a series of safety breaches involving toxins in food and other products.

"Zheng was supposed to use the power given to him by the state and the people seriously and honestly, but instead he has ignored their vital interests... by taking the bribes," Xinhua quoted the court as saying.

"This has threatened the safety of people's life and health and has caused an extremely bad social impact."
FDA targets China toothpaste imports

Zheng, 62, a native of the southeastern province of Fujian, headed the watchdog agency from 1998 to 2005 after rising through the ranks of state-owned pharmaceutical companies.

But he was expelled from the ruling Communist Party earlier this year after investigators said he abused approval powers to obtain bribes and win illegal profits from drug companies.

The bribes, including cash and gifts, were worth some 6.5 million yuan ($850,000) from eight companies, and were given either directly or through his wife and son, Xinhua reported.

Under Zheng's watch, 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.
International spotlight

The safety of China's food has since burst into the international spotlight after wheat gluten and rice protein containing melamine scrap was exported from China and mixed into pet food, causing deaths of cats and dogs in the United States and leading to pet food recalls.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Zheng's sentence was an internal affair but added: "I believe it reflects the Chinese government's determination in fighting corruption."

"China has always attached great importance to the safety and security of consumer goods, food and drugs and sees the health safety of its people as an important task," she told a news briefing.

Zheng was also deprived of his personal property and political rights, Xinhua said, adding that investigators found he lowered standards in renewing drug production licenses, leading to the manufacturing of fake drugs.

A court official contacted by telephone declined to comment.
Chicken feed, tainted pet food linked

The last time China sentenced an official of Zheng's rank to death was in 2000, when Hu Changqing, a vice governor of the eastern Jiangxi province, and Cheng Kejie, a vice head of the National People's Congress, were executed for taking bribes.

Zheng left the watchdog agency long before the latest scandals hit, and no official reports have directly ascribed any deaths to his crimes. But Beijing may be making a political example of Zheng to show citizens and other nations it is serious about food and drug standards.

In a related case, the maker of a fake medical additive that was linked to widespread deaths in Panama is under scrutiny, with local media reporting that families of Chinese patients killed by the ingredient have sued a hospital that gave toxic injections.

The 10 plaintiffs are demanding more than 20 million yuan total compensation after the hospital in the southern city of Guangzhou gave injections of fake Armillarisni A, made by the Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., a lawyer for the hospital told the Information Times, a Guangzhou paper.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/29/news/international/china_death_sentence.reut/?postversion=2007052909

[cdlong]

sounds harsh but appropriate. how many deaths did his greed cause?

[azndoc]

Yeah what a douchbag. My uncle always goes over there and comes back with stories of how bad the canned food over there is. That's why I'm not too much of a hurry to go over there and visit.

[Evil240]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18911849/

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also warned consumers not to buy or eat imported fish from China labeled as monkfish because it might actually be pufferfish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin.

The warning came days after three southern U.S. states banned imports of catfish from China because they contained traces of antibiotics the FDA says have never been approved for use in aquaculture.

The China Daily also said that the State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng’s agency, plans to blacklist food producers who break rules.

According to The Outlook Weekly, a magazine published by the Chinese government’s news agency, a survey by the quality inspection administration found that a third of China’s 450,000 food production companies had no licenses.

Also, 60 percent of the total did not conduct safety tests or have the capability to do so, the survey found.

[BOROSUN]

china is sending a good messege to the corrupt companies... "dont fawk around with us or your dead!"

jesus, engine coolant tooth paste, thats just out of control.

[EvilRB]

See this is what America needs to do. $830,000 is all that they can prove and the fact that he killed 10+ people!! This fucker deserves this sentence. If we had this harsh laws for corporate crimes we wouldn't have as much shit like Enron happening.

[s13gold]

well damn....he probably killed numerous people taking his "approved drugs".

JUSTICE!!!

[Matej]

Death sentence? Over here he'd get a slap on the wrist and a few million dollars to stay out of public eye on some tropical private island for a year, protected by bodyguards.

[ManoNegra]

This was in the LA Times this weekend:

Plantation workers look for justice in the North (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-pesticide27may27,1,1323766.story?ctrack=1&cset=true)

US companies also know how to party.

[DUFFM4N]

you reap what you sow