The Daily Background

Can you imagine having a former government official being executed for corruption in the US? That’s what’s going on in China:

China’s former top drug regulator was sentenced to death Tuesday for taking bribes to approve untested medicines, as the country’s main quality control agency announced its first recall system targeting unsafe food products.
[…]
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu for taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 when he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The court then issued the death penalty, the report said.
[…]
Zheng, who ran the drug administration from its creation in 1998 until he was fired in 2005, saw his power increase substantially in 2002 when the government required that all drugs be approved by the agency. The change resulted in a massive backlog, giving companies a strong incentive to find ways to expedite approvals.

This would be the equivalent of the former head of the FDA being executed for taking bribes. The AP almost makes it sound like a public relations stunt, writing “The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods — from pet-food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.” Taking bribes to illegally approve drugs is pretty bad, but executing somebody for it is exponentially worse.

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