Zheng Xiaoyu

Biography

Born in Fuzhou, Fujian on December 21, 1944, Zheng Xiaoyu eventually studied to receive his bachelor's degree in biology from Fudan University in 1968. He joined the Communist Party of China in November 1979.

Zheng was director of the State Pharmaceutical Administration from 1994 to 1998, head of the State Drug Administration from 1998 to 2003, and director of the State Food and Drug Administration from 2003 to 2005.

In May 2007, Zheng was convicted of taking bribes and dereliction of duty and sentenced to death by a trial court in Beijing. These corrupt practices are believed to have led to 40 deaths in Panama from cough syrup that contained diethylene glycol in place of glycerin. Zheng had been convicted of personally approving unproven and unsafe medicines after taking bribes from eight pharmaceutical companies while working as the former head of China's ministry of food and drug safety, bribes totaling more than 6.49 million RMB (or a rough equivalent of 850,000 USD), approvals which resulted in at least a hundred patient deaths, directly and indirectly. Some claims on the Chinese internet put the deaths in the thousands. It was also discovered that during the eight-year period of drug oversight, Zheng personally ordered approvals of more than 150,000 new medicines, an amount 134-times that of the U.S. FDA (which approves, on average, ca. 140 new medicines annually). Most of those 150,000 medicines were the products of the eight pharmaceutical companies that bribed Zheng. A single unsafe medication of Anhui Hua Yuan (华源) Company, since closed, resulted in 14 patient deaths, hundreds being permanently disabled, and several thousand more falling seriously ill; Anhui Hua Yuan's CEO committed suicide before his arrest. Zheng's trial resulted in a death sentence.

Cao Wenzhuang, a former director of the same agency's department dealing with drug registrations was also sentenced to death in the first week of July, 2007, for dereliction of duty and accepting bribes. Cao had accepted more than two million RMB (or a rough equivalent of 250,000 USD). Cao received a two-year "reprieve" for his death sentence, "a ruling that usually [results in the death sentence being] commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed."

Zheng entered an appeal for leniency on June 12, saying that the sentence was "too severe" citing the fact that he had confessed his crimes and cooperated with investigators. However, the court ruled that he was a "great danger" to the country and its reputation. The appeal was rejected on June 22 and he was executed on July 10, 2007. The method of execution was not made publicly available.