Robi Ganguly’s Big Ideas

Whoa.. just came across this news item that China had executed its old food and drug chief for accepting bribes and approving untested medicines that proved to be fatal.

From the State Food and Drug Administration’s spokesperson:

We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future…

Now, I’m not a death penalty supporter, so this decision saddens me. But it also strikes me that if you’re a country that accepts it and utilizes it (which China does apparently more often than every other country) that they’re trying to send a very clear message here. Also from the story:

Yan said the food and drug administration was working to tighten its safety procedures and create a more transparent operating environment. The administration has already announced a series of measures to tighten safety controls and closed factories where illegal chemicals or other problems were found.

Are these the steps a country takes that eventually lead to an improvement of its track record on human rights and public discourse? I don’t know, but I do hope so, for all of the citizens of China.

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