Spokeswoman Yan Jiangying, courtesy of VOA
The whole world has been buzzing over this one today. At the risk of being flippant, we're not quite that tough over here, are we?
China's food and drug administration spokeswoman, Yan Jiangying, acknowledged to reporters Tuesday China's food and drug safety was "unsatisfactory" and the country was facing a tough situation in supervising standards.
"As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late and its foundations are weak," she said. "Therefore, the food and drug safety situation is not something we can be optimistic about."
Yan's comments came as the official Xinhua news agency reported the execution of the former head of the food and drug administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, after he was found guilty of corruption and dereliction of duty.
Zheng was sentenced to death in May for accepting cash and gifts worth more than $830,000 from pharmaceutical companies. Xinhua said his appeal was rejected because of the immense damage he had caused to public health and safety.
During his time as chief, the administration approved many medicines that did not meet standards, including six fake drugs. Zheng was the highest level official to be executed in seven years.
(More here at Voice of America.)
The bottom line: China is admittedly incapable of policing its hundreds of thousands of small producers.
No comments:
Post a Comment