AP: Chinese Drug Regulator Fired For Suspected Violations

The Associated Press is reporting that Zhang Jingli, the "deputy head of China's food and drug regulator, is being investigated and has been dismissed from his post, a state news agency said Sunday, citing an anti-corruption agency."

Xinhua, a state news agency, "cited the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, an anti-corruption body, in a brief report that offered no details on what the suspected violations were."

Highlights of the Associated Press story include:

· The move comes three years after the former chief of the drug agency was executed after a bribe-taking scandal in which several deaths were blamed on medicines the agency approved.

· Zhang Jingli, deputy director of the State Food and Drug Administration is under investigation for suspected "serious disciplinary violations," the official Xinhua News Agency said. The term is a standard party reference for graft and abuse of power.

· In 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the drug and food watchdog was executed after he was convicted of taking bribes to approve flawed medicine blamed for several deaths.

· Zheng was sentenced to death for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines.

· China said in April it would step up monitoring of a faulty rabies vaccine that was recalled last year but could have still been on the market. It was the latest in a series of quality problems in China in recent years, including tainted infant formula and other milk products that sickened children.

· China's pharmaceutical industry is lucrative but often poorly regulated. Local manufacturers and other players along the drug supply chain have been blamed in recent years for deaths linked to counterfeit or shoddy medications at home and abroad.

To read the entire Associated Press story: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHqNTMIPOepIIcWUsEuBqru23vrAD9GA86VG0

Given all of the issues with fraudulent, adulterated and counterfeit medications that have emanated from China internal regulatory scrutiny seems a very wise course of action.

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To learn more about pharmaceutical authentication technologies, visit: http://www.xstreamsystems.net/.