China sends message on food, drug scandals

BEIJING — By the standards of Chinese corruption cases, the $832,000 that the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration was charged with skimming over a seven-year period was not huge. But the death sentence given in the bribery case Tuesday reflected the growing pressure under which Beijing finds itself in the wake of medical and food scandals that have rattled the nation and spread anxiety abroad.

Dozens of Chinese died during the period that the condemned official, Zheng Xiaoyu, reportedly approved untested medicines. And China has suffered significant loss of face overseas.

The nation's reputation as an export juggernaut recently has been tarnished by a pet food scandal in the United States, disclosures that exported toothpaste contained a chemical used in antifreeze and reports of Chinese medical ingredients being linked to deaths in Panama.

Beijing has responded by dispatching legions of factory inspectors and promising tougher oversight. On Tuesday, it announced its first recall system for unsafe food products as well as the death sentence for the 62-year-old former bureaucrat.

Zheng was tapped to head the state regulatory agency at its inception in 1998 after having worked for more than two decades at state-run drug companies in the prosperous eastern city of Hangzhou.

The government agency saw its clout expand dramatically in 2002, when rules were issued requiring that it approve all drugs. This quickly led to a backlog of applications that Zheng reportedly exploited to solicit bribes for fast-track treatment. Zheng held the top agency post until he was sacked in 2005.

"The Chinese FDA faces huge numbers of approval applications, which creates a big opportunity for the head of the agency to take bribes," said Hao Zhao, associate professor with the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing.

According to the New China News Agency and other state media, Zheng took cash and gifts from eight companies, either personally or routed through his wife and son, for approving fake medicine by using false documents. As the net closed around him, he was expelled from the Communist Party and deprived of his personal and property rights.

Under Zheng's watch, at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui province in 2004 after they were fed fake milk powder with no nutritional value. And an antibiotic approved by the agency during Zheng's tenure killed at least 10 patients in 2006 before it was taken off the market.