An unusually harsh sentence was meted out recently to the ex-commissioner of Chinese food and drug regulatory agency for taking bribes and dereliction of duty.
The former senior official, Zheng Xiaoyu was sentenced to death for his crimes during his term in office. He had been accused by an official investigation last month of accepting more than 6.5m yuan ($850,000) in bribes to approve hundreds of drugs. Safety problems have been reported among a number of Chinese produced food and drugs which caused a number of deaths both at home and abroad. The verdict came as the government announced plans for the first ever recall system of unsafe food products.
Zheng's former secretary, Cao Wenzhuang, also faced trial, accused of accepting bribes. Thirty-one other people were also charged with the scandal, including Zheng's wife, Liu Naixue, and his son, Zheng Hairong.
Some of the high profile scandals implicated or implied were:
• an antibiotic called Xinfu which was not properly sterilized, caused the deaths of 11 people.
• 13 babies died of malnutrition after being fed powdered milk that contained no nutritional value in 2005.
• pet food tainted with melamine blamed for the deaths of cats and dogs in North America
• numerous link of medicinal syrup which were adulterated with diethylene glycol which killed many children in China and overseas
• exports of China made toothpaste potentially contaminated with toxic chemicals were halted.
The Chinese government has now decided to review about 170,000 medical licences that were awarded during Zheng’s tenure at the SFDA. This has been lauded as a pragmatic damage-control measure to minimize the risk of public health, and more importantly to restore public’s trust towards the regulators.
**********
