Another Chinese Drug Regulator Sentenced to Death

BEIJING — A former department head at China's drug regulation agency was sentenced to death July 6 on bribery charges, as U.S. regulators ordered a recall of three more Chinese-made products deemed dangerous to children.

The developments were the latest in widening concerns about the safety of Chinese goods both at home and abroad.

Cao Wenzhuang, a department director at the State Food and Drug Administration, was given the death sentence with a two-year reprieve on charges of accepting bribes and neglecting official duties, said his lawyer, Gao Zicheng.

While the sentence was unusually harsh given the charges, such suspended death sentences are usually commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.

Cao, who oversaw the pharmaceutical registration department, had been secretary to Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of the agency, in the 1980s. Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.
In the pharmaceuticals department, Cao, 45, had the power to approve pharmaceutical production in China from 2002 to 2006.

Read the full Associated Press story here.