Ex-China drug regulator to be executed

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By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 29, 7:15 AM ET


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 taken
to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe
Chinese goods ? from pet food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with
induso trial 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 also failed to make "careful arrangements for the supervision of
medicine production, which is of critical importance to people's
lives," Xinhua said, citing the court. Under his watch, six types of
medicine approved were fake and pharmaceutical companies got away with
using false documents to apply for approvals, it said. No other
details were given.

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," the court said.

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.

It was not immediately clear if Zheng would appeal. 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.

Zheng's sentence was unusually harsh given his rank, though the
Communist Party has in recent years pressed an anti-corruption
campaign with renewed vigor. The last time someone of Zheng's rank was
executed was in December 2003, when Wang Huaizhong, the deputy
governor of central Anhui province, was put to death for corruption.

"The Chinese government attaches great importance to the safety and
security of food," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a
regular briefing Tuesday when asked about Zheng's case.

"We stand ready to work with the international community to safeguard
the quality and reputation of the Chinese food industry," she said.

In its noon newscast, state television showed a gray-haired Zheng, 62,
flanked by court police, who handcuffed him while the verdict was
being read.

Zheng had 23 years of experience manufacturing pharmaceuticals in the
eastern city of Hangzhou before being appointed the drug
administration's first head in 1998, China Central Television said in
its report. He ran it until he was fired in 2005.

Zheng 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, a situation that encouraged corruption and
corner-cutting on approvals for often bogus or dangerous drugs.

Meanwhile, China's first food recall measures will be implemented by
the end of the year, an official from the General Administration of
Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, China's main food
safety agency, was cited as saying.

"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 by the state-run China Daily newspaper.

The recall system will 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 to comment.

Current regulations on product inspection, issued in 2002, mention the
need for a food recall system but the issue has never been
systematically addressed, the China Daily said.

In recent months, tainted Chinese pet food ingredients have been
blamed for the deaths of cats and dogs in North America, and
toothpaste from China mixed with an industrial chemical has been found
on shelves in Central America and the Caribbean.

The same chemical, diethylene glycol, was cited in the deaths since
October of at least 51 people in Panama who had taken medicine made
from diethylene glycol shipped from China and falsely labeled as
harmless glycerin.

The China Daily also said the State Food and Drug Administration, the
agency formerly run by the disgraced Zheng, will blacklist food
producers who break rules.

Under a nationwide safety campaign launched Monday, 90 administration
inspectors will be sent to 15 provinces over the next two weeks, the
newspaper said.

Food safety problem is a serious problem across the vast country, with
China's Health Ministry reporting almost 34,000 food-related illnesses
in 2005. Spoiled food accounting for the largest number, followed by
poisonous plants or animals and use of agricultural chemicals.

According to the official magazine Outlook Weekly, a survey by the
quality inspection administration found that a third of China's
450,000 food makers had no licenses. Also, 60 percent of the total did
not conduct safety tests or have the capability to do so, the survey
found.

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Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The
information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written
authority of The Associated Press.


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