China's former Food and Drug chief gets death penalty

Zheng Zhaoyu, former director of China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), was sentenced to death by a Beijing court today on bribery and dereliction of duty charges. He received the death penalty by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court on the graft charge and a further 7 years of imprisonment on the dereliction of duty charge.

Zheng, 63, was accused of taking bribes amounting to 6.49 million yuan (631,000 euros). The court said that in exchange for gifts and money from eight pharmaceutical companies, Zheng approved their drugs and medical devices while he was in office from June 1997 to December 2005.

Zheng was head of the SFDA since its inception in 1998, and his power increased in 2002 when the government required that all drugs be approved by the agency before going on the market. AP reports that the change created a massive backlog, prompting companies to look for ways to facilitate the process.

One of the antibiotics approved by Zheng's agency killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the shelves.

According to CRI, the court said that Zheng's acts "greatly undermined the uprightness of an official post and the efficiency of China's drug monitoring and supervision, endangered public life and health and had a very negative social impact."

In related news, China announced its first recall system for unsafe food products. The move comes to counter domestic and international alarm over unsafe Chinese goods.

Wu Jianping, director general of the General Administration of Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said that the new regulation targeting "potentially dangerous and unapproved food products" will be implemented by the end of the year.