China to execute ex-drug regulator

BEIJING — 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 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.

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.

In one instance, an antibiotic approved by Zheng's agency killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market.

Also Tuesday, an official from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the recall system will be part of a new regulation crafted by the agency and will be implemented by the end of the year.

"All domestic and foreign food producers and distributors will be obliged to follow the system," Wu Jianping, director general of the administration's food production and supervision department, was quoted as saying in the state-run China Daily newspaper.

The recall system would be put in place gradually, the report said. It did not provide details, and the inspection agency refused comment.

Concern over Chinese exports has been increasing as more instances of poor hygiene and the use of banned substances are uncovered.

Pet-food ingredients, spiked with the chemical melamine and related compounds, have been blamed in the deaths of dogs and cats in North America. The U.S. government has stopped all Chinese toothpaste imports after reports that some products sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama were tainted with diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also warned consumers not to buy or eat imported fish from China labeled as monkfish because it might actually be pufferfish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin.

The warning came days after three southern U.S. states banned imports of catfish from China because they contained traces of antibiotics the FDA says have never been approved for use in aquaculture.

The China Daily also said the State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng's agency, plans to blacklist food producers who break rules.

The administration launched a nationwide campaign Monday on drug-safety inspection, sending a total of 90 officials to 15 provinces over the next two weeks, the newspaper said.