According to Beijing Youth Daily, five officials from China's State Food and Drug Administration have been arrested for allegedly accepting bribes.
The report said that the five people are Wei Liang, an investigator from SFDA; Kong Fanzhong, an official from the Drug Certification Center of SFDA; and Qi Zibai, Bai Jianshi, and Chen Jiting, who are former officials from the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products, an affiliate of SFDA.
The scandal was exposed following a report made by a pharmaceutical company claiming that Wei had accepted bribes. The company was reportedly engaged in bio-products manufacturing.
It is said that Wei, most of whose work is on vaccine and blood products, might have some affiliation with fake vaccines, as he was arrested right after the problematic rabies vaccines in Hebei and Jiangsu were exposed.
It is the second major bribery scandal concerning the SFDA in less than four years. In July 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the SFDA, was executed for taking bribes to approve licenses for new drugs.