China executes former head of food and drug watchdog
China today executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog who had become a symbol of the country’s wide-ranging problems on product safety.
Zheng Xiaoyu’s execution was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency.
“The few corrupt officials of the (State Food and Drug Administration) are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems,” SFDA spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China’s track record on food and drug safety.
“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 about Zheng and a separate case involving Cao Wenzhuang, the administration’s former pharmaceutical registration department director.
Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines. Cao was given a death sentence last month with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty.
Such suspended death sentences usually are commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.
Zheng’s death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and likely indicates the leadership’s determination to confront the country’s dire product safety record.
Yan said the food and drug administration was working to tighten its safety procedures and create a more transparent operating environment. But the administration acknowledged that its supervision of food and drug safety is unsatisfactory and that it has been slow to tackle the problem, but vowed to improve.
