Re: China Sentences Ex-Top Drug Regulator to Death, Puts in Place First Food Recall System
- From: "jofirey" <jofirey@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 11:59:17 -0700
"california_chief" <Fire_Chief@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:_VO6i.9775$gM1.1315@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
China Sentences Ex-Top Drug Regulator to Death, Puts in Place First Food
Recall System
Monday, May 28, 2007 2052 PDT
BEIJING -- China's former top drug regulator was sentenced to death
Tuesday for taking bribes to approve untested medicines, as the country's
main quality control agency announced its first recall system targeting
unsafe food 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.
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu for
taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 when he was
director of the State Food and Drug Administration, the official Xinhua
News
Agency said. The court then issued the death penalty, the report said.
A woman surnamed Liu who answered the telephone at the court's duty office
confirmed the report but declined to give additional details.
Zheng, who ran the drug administration from its creation in 1998 until he
was fired in 2005, saw his power increase substantially in 2002 when the
government required that all drugs be approved by the agency. The change
resulted in a massive backlog, giving companies a strong incentive to find
ways to expedite approvals.
In one instance, an antibiotic approved by Zheng's agency killed at least
10
patients last year before it was taken off the market.
Also Tuesday, an official from the General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said that the recall system will be
part of a new regulation crafted by the agency and will be implemented by
the end of the year.
"All domestic and foreign food producers and distributors will be obliged
to
follow the system," Wu Jianping, director general of the administration's
food production and supervision department, was quoted as saying in the
state-run China Daily newspaper.
The recall system would be put in place gradually and will focus on
"potentially dangerous and unapproved food products" the report said.
The report did not provide further details and the inspection agency
refused
comment.
Current regulations on product inspection, issued in 2002, mention the
need
for a food recall system, the China Daily said, but the issue has not been
systematically addressed.
Concern over Chinese exports has been increasing as more instances of poor
hygiene and the use of banned substances are uncovered.
Pet food ingredients, spiked with the chemical melamine and related
compounds, have been blamed in the deaths of dogs and cats in North
America.
The U.S. government has stopped all Chinese toothpaste imports after
reports
that some products sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama
were
tainted with diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and
brake fluid.
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.
The administration launched a nationwide campaign Monday on drug safety
inspection, sending a total of 90 officials to 15 provinces over the next
two weeks, the newspaper said.
The Chinese leadership also has been battling a dismal food-safety record
within the country. China's Health Ministry reported almost 34,000
food-related illnesses in 2005, with spoiled food accounting for the
largest
number.
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.
Gotta say when the Chinese take action against corruption by public
officials, they take action.
But again I'm truly puzzled. We have to import catfish from China? What
are all those old guys along the canals and along the bridges fishing for
anyway? I never thought the US had a shortage of catfish.
Jo
.
- References:
- China Sentences Ex-Top Drug Regulator to Death, Puts in Place First Food Recall System
- From: california_chief
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