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Zheng sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to OK substandard drugs
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:17 p.m. ET July 10, 2007
BEIJING - China executed a former director of its food and drug agency Tuesday
for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash, illustrating how serious
Beijing is about tackling product safety, while officials announced steps to
safeguard food at next summer s Olympic Games.
The measures include ensuring athletes food is free of substances that could
trigger a positive result in tests for banned performance-enhancing drugs. Many
of China s recent food woes have been tied to the purity of ingredients,
flavoring, artificial colors and other additives.
During Zheng Xiaoyu s tenure as head of the State Food and Drug Administration
from 1997 to 2006, the agency approved six untested drugs that turned out to be
fake, and some drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals,
according to state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least
10 people.
The few corrupt officials of the SFDA are the shame of the whole system and
their scandals have revealed some very serious problems, agency spokeswoman
Yan Jiangying said at a news conference Tuesday highlighting efforts to improve
China s track record on food and drug safety.
Safety of Olympic fare
Next year s Beijing Olympics, a great source of pride for China, also has been
targeted in the crackdown on unsafe food. Sun Wenxu, an official with the State
Administration for Industry and Commerce, told reporters that athletes,
coaches, officials and others can be assured of safe meals.
All the procedures involving Olympic food, including production, processing,
packaging, storing and transporting will be closely monitored, Sun said.
Food and drug agency spokeswoman Yan acknowledged the agency s supervision
remains unsatisfactory and that it has been slow to tackle the problem.
China is a developing country and our supervision of food and drugs started
quite late and our foundation for this work is weak, so we are not optimistic
about the current food and drug safety situation, she said.
Fears abroad over Chinese-made drugs were sparked last year by the deaths of
dozens of people in Panama who took medicine contaminated with diethylene
glycol a thickening agent used in antifreeze imported from China. It was
passed off as harmless glycerin.
Chinese-made toothpaste containing diethylene glycol has been banned in North
and South America and Asia, though there have been no reports of health
problems stemming from the product. And two brands of toothpaste sold in Spain
were pulled from the shelves after the substance was found, the European Union
said Tuesday.
China has no guideline banning the chemical in toothpaste, and the government
says it is harmless in small amounts.
In the United States and Canada, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten
tainted with the chemical melamine has been blamed for the deaths of dogs and
cats. Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish,
juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with
lead paint.
The list of food scares within China over the past year includes drug-tainted
fish, industrial dye used to color egg yolks red and pork tainted with a banned
feed additive.
Tighter safety procedures
Zheng s death sentence was unusually severe even for China, which is believed
to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and
indicates the communist leadership s determination to confront the country s
dire product safety record.
Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in
charge of the food and drug agency.
He was sentenced to death on May 29 and his appeal was rejected on June 12 by
the Higher People s Court of Beijing. China s Supreme Court approved the
sentence, saying Zheng committed vile crimes and caused extreme harm to
society.
Although he confessed to some of the crimes of bribe-taking and returned some
of the illegal income, it was not enough for leniency, the court said.
Zheng s execution Tuesday morning was confirmed by state television and the
official Xinhua News Agency.
We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step
up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now
and what we will do in the future, Yan said.
Cao Wenzhuang, a former director of the food and drug agency s drug
registration department, was sentenced to death last week for accepting bribes
and dereliction of duty. He was given a two-year reprieve, which usually means
he can get life in prison if deemed to have reformed.
Yan said the food and drug agency was working to tighten its safety procedures
and create a more transparent operating environment. The administration has
announced a series of measures to tighten safety controls and closed factories
where illegal chemicals or other problems were found.
13 companies banned from exporting
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
posted on its Web site Monday the names of 13 companies that have been banned
from exporting after their products were found to be substandard.
The products included rice cakes, cooked mushrooms, preserved pears and several
kinds of seafood bound for Europe, Japan and North America. Problems included
evasion of inspection and quarantine, as well as excessive bacteria and sulfur
dioxide in the food or the presence of banned drugs.
Meanwhile, authorities promised to investigate water purity after a newspaper
reported that more than half of the water coolers in Beijing use counterfeit
branded water.
The Beijing Times reported that water jugs are filled with either tap water or
purified water from small suppliers and sealed with bogus quality standard
marks.
The report said the practice is widespread because water from major suppliers
can cost twice as much as water from other sources.
Wu Jianping, an official with the General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, noted that a May inspection of Beijing
s drinking water products found more than 96 percent were safe.
Problems found with some individual cases cannot be interpreted to mean that
the entire water industry has problems, Wu said.