Ways That Are Dark

A Chinese court sentenced a former official from the State Food and Drug Administration to death today. It’s the country’s second death sentence for a former drug regulator in the last three months. Cao Wenzhuang oversaw the pharmaceutical registration department, which gave him the power to approve the production of drugs. He was convicted of accepting more than $300,000 in bribes from two companies who were seeking approval for their drugs. Under Cao, the registration department at one point had a staff of 12 and approved 14,000 drugs in three months.

While the world has reeled at recent tainted food scandals, the more serious problem lies in China. The New York Times reports in its coverage of the latest high profile death sentence:

Chinese consumers are thought to be the primary victims of fake and substandard food and drugs, and the nation’s top regulators have been blamed for putting the public at risk by swapping cars, gifts and cash for granting licenses to drugs that in some cases have turned out to be deadly.

And while the recipient of the bribes is being dealt with harshly, what is the fate of the companies accused of bribing him?

Although some pharmaceutical companies involved in the scandal have been shut down and some executives have been jailed, the government has said little about prosecuting the companies and officials who paid the bribes.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 7th, 2007 at 8:53 am and is filed under Corruption, Product Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.