China executed the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) on Tuesday, after the Chinese Supreme Court turned down his final appeal. Zheng Xiaoyu, 63, was sentenced to death for neglecting his obligations to the country by accepting bribes from eight companies, worth US$850,000, in exchange for drug approvals.

The execution comes on the heels of a number of scandals involving Chinese products. Among them, two weeks ago eighty-three people were reported to have died in Panama after taking medicines contaminated with a Chinese-made toxin.

Panama is investigating the illness of 540 people suspected of falling sick after using cough syrup and other medicines found last year to be contaminated with diethylene glycol, a substance normally used in anti-freeze. Goods imported to the U.S., like toothpaste, have also been found to be dangerous, which has harmed China's reputation around the world. The execution was meant to demonstrate Beijing's commitment to food safety and to prevent future health scandals.
During Zheng's service as head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) from 1997 to 2006, the agency approved six untested drugs that were actually fake. According to state media reports, some drug-makers used altered documents to apply for approvals; one antibiotic left ten people dead.

"Zheng Xiaoyu's grave irresponsibility in pharmaceutical safety inspection and failure to conscientiously carry out his duties seriously damaged the interests of the state and people," Xinhua news agency quoted the court as saying.

Zheng Xiaoyu was the first official of his status to be given the death sentence since 2000. According to human rights groups, China holds more court-ordered executions than any other country around the world, but even by local standards the quick application of Zheng's sentence was rare and unusually severe.

Zheng's sentence illustrates how much pressure Beijing is under after some failures and deaths due to toxins in foods and medicines, among other products. Over the past year, the food scares in China have included pork tainted with a banned feed additive, drug-tainted fish, and industrial dye used to color egg yolks red.

According to SFDA spokeswoman Yan Jianyang, the Chinese government recognizes that inadequate supervision still exists and that it has been taking too long to fix this problem. "China is a developing country and our supervision of food and drugs started quite late and our foundation for this work is weak, so we are not optimistic about the current food and drug safety situation," she said.

These incidents do not mean all Chinese goods and exports are unsafe, said Lin Wei, deputy head of the quality inspection bureau's import and export food safety division. "We are confident we can guarantee that Chinese products are of good quality and cheap, yet safe and healthy," he added.

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