Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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BEIJING - China executed a former director of its food and drug agency Tuesday for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash, illustrating how serious Beijing is about tackling product safety, while officials announced steps to safeguard food at next summer’s Olympic Games.

The measures include ensuring athletes’ food is free of substances that could trigger a positive result in tests for banned performance-enhancing drugs. Many of China’s recent food woes have been tied to the purity of ingredients, flavoring, artificial colors and other additives.

During Zheng Xiaoyu’s tenure as head of the State Food and Drug Administration from 1997 to 2006, the agency approved six untested drugs that turned out to be fake, and some drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.

(Full Article)

So apparently the people responsible for the unsafe food and products flowing from China are finally being held responsible, it’s about frigging time. I love this part though:

…illustrating how serious Beijing is about tackling product safety, while officials announced steps to safeguard food at next summer’s Olympic Games.

Um no, I doubt it has anything to do with them being serious about safety and tackling it head on. The Olympic Games is a big event and money maker for the country hosting it. China has to make an effort to appear as though they are concerned with safety and taking measures to ensure the safety of athletes now before the games draw any closer. Otherwise a new venue will definately be insisted upon by the other competing nations.

I seem to recall a recent event that had, at first, only dog owners switching from regular dog food to Premium dog food and then when the situation worsened cat and dog owners alike began to make their own pet food in order to ensure their pet’s safety. Hundreds of pets were affected and an international fuss was caused over this but China did little in way of taking measures then. And that was far from the only incident too.

I’m thinking Zheng Xiaoyu is just one of many who need to be executed.