Zheng Xiaoyu, head of China's food and drug agency, was executed on July 10, 2007.  His official sin was taking bribes to allow poison food and killer drugs to get to market. The execution was publicly and officially announced to show China is tough on crime and fraud.  They are changing... cracking down... things are better now.

His real sin was getting his, and his country's, name in international papers - casting a negative light on China.  The death penalty it is.

Before the headlines, Zheng Xiaoyu was revealed inside China.  In 2005.  An anonymous internet post accused the country's highest-ranking regulator of accepting a lakeside house and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Kangliyuan Group in exchange for production licenses. China was furious, and could not find the source.  But, in their official fury, they jailed one person who found the post and re-posted the report to another site.  Whistleblowers beware.

China approved 150,000 drugs last year.  The U.S. FDA approved 140.  Think about this number, and what "approval" means.  Assuming a 200 day work year, that is 7,500 drugs approved each day!  You can mix eye of newt, bat's wings, and lizard tails in a cauldron, submit for approval of the mixture as a new drug, and have a good chance of being one of the 7,500 approvals on any particular workday.

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