China's former drug czar, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been sentenced to death after admitting that he took bribes while running the country's Food & Drug Administration between 1998 and 2005. The death sentence comes at a time that Chinese officials are trying to counter a growing number of claims that its drug system has been severely tainted by unscrupulous manufacturers out to make a fast buck. Drug makers have frequently sold unsafe products as regulators failed to prevent the threats to public health. In one particularly notorious case, a toxic chemical wound up in toothpaste and cough syrup distributed in Latin America. Zheng Xiaoyu was accused of taking $800,000 in bribes. Chinese officials fear that without some form of correction, China's multibillion-dollar export program--and its work to significantly expand drug manufacturing--could be derailed.
- here's the report on the sentencing from The New York Times
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