China has an idea.....

This is occuring in China as reported by Tim Johnson through the McClatchy News Service and printed in The Miami Herald on May 30, 2007. (Business section C, Page 2)

Crooked Chinese drug official to be put to death
Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of China's food and drug agency, has been sentenced to death for approving substandard medications.

BEIJING -- In an unusually harsh sentence, a court Tuesday ordered the death penalty for the disgraced former head of China's food and drug agency, making a show of the nation's resolve to crack down on public health violations.

Zheng Xiaoyu was found guilty of taking bribes and dereliction of duty, according to the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate Court. He's the highest-ranking Chinese official to get the death penalty since 2000.
Zheng was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth about $832,000 to grant approvals for hundreds of substandard drugs, according to the state news agency, Xinhua. In several cases during his tenure, from 1998 to 2005, faulty medicines and fake infant formula led to the deaths of infants and adults.
A global alarm has sounded in the past two months over adulterated goods from China, including tainted pet food, which killed animals in North America, toothpaste containing industrial chemicals found in Latin America and Australia, and contaminated antibiotics in China's domestic market.
Several analysts said the harsh sentence for Zheng, 62, was aimed more at Chinese citizens angry over lax regulation and shoddy products than at consumers around the world suddenly edgy over foods and goods originating in China.
''People are increasingly outraged that profit is supplanting safety,'' said Russell Leigh Moses, an analyst of Chinese politics based in Beijing. 'This is also meant to stanch some of the rising citizen complaints about healthcare in a general sense. This is to tell that audience, `We hear you.' ''
One pharmaceutical firm, Kongliyuan Group, paid Zheng in return for the approval of 277 drugs, Chinese state media said.
In another instance, an antibiotic that the State Food and Drug Administration approved under Zheng's tenure killed 10 patients in the southern city of Guangzhou last year before it was pulled from the market.
After his removal in 2005, Chinese authorities announced that they were reviewing 170,000 pharmaceutical approvals that the agency issued under Zheng.