Kia Franklin

Deadly Corruption has new meaning in China

Beijing just sentenced its second State Food and Drug Administration official to death on corruption charges, for accepting bribes to approve dangerous drugs and products, according to the New York Times. Pharmaceutical companies allegedly paid Mr. Cao Wenzhuang $307,000, and paid Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu $850,000, to either speed or skirt the approval process for thousands of different drugs, many of which were counterfeited, deadly-dangerous, or both. Four other officials received long-term prison sentences for similar activities.

These events were at least in part influenced by increasing international shaming--in addition to the pet food and sea food scares, at least 100 people died in Haiti and the Dominican Republic from toxins in Chinese imported toothpaste. According to NYT:

But Chinese consumers are believed to be the primary victims of fake and substandard food and drugs, and the nation’s top regulators have been blamed with putting the public at risk by swapping cars, gifts and cash for granting licenses for drugs that in some cases have turned out to be deadly.

"This is a harsh but probably necessary strategy to re-establish control over an under-regulated sector," said David Zweig, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

This open-and-shut case of corporate crime demonstrates the impact such self-seeking has on actual human (and animal, and plant) lives, and might warrant taking pause to ask: What if the consequences for corporate crime in the United States were this harsh? Now, the death sentence sends shudders down my spine--I am totally opposed--and indeed, the sentence will likely be reduced to life imprisonment. But what if caught-in-the act corporate criminals were given hard core prison time (sentences that are actually then carried out, I mean) for putting the public's safety at risk? What if we could truly rely on government to hold these parties accountable?

Interestingly, though, in China only the state officials have been prosecuted for their involvement in the scandal. While some pharmaceutical companies have been closed and some executives jailed, the government has yet to prosecute the companies and officials who paid the bribes.

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Posted at 10:19 AM, Jul 06, 2007 in
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