China STILL Sucks…
I’ve made my voice heard at the Online Star, challenging all those Chinese Jingoists who got up in arms during the Olympics any time anyone dared report on the truth about how horrible the Chinese dictatorship is to try to deny or defend this latest horror show:
BEIJING–China’s tainted milk crisis widened Friday after tests found the industrial chemical melamine in liquid milk produced by three of the country’s leading dairy companies, the quality watchdog said. Tainted baby formula has been blamed for killing four infants and sickening 6,200 in China since the scandal broke last week. Some 1,300 babies, mostly newborns, are currently in hospitals and 158 of them are suffering from acute kidney failure. Thousands of parents across the country were bringing their children to hospitals for health checks.
The crisis was initially thought to have been confined to tainted milk powder. But about 10 per cent of liquid milk samples taken from Mengniu Dairy Group Co. and Yili Industrial Group Co. – China’s two largest dairy producers – contained melamine, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Milk from Shanghai-based Bright Dairy also showed contamination. Hong Kong’s two biggest grocery chains, PARKnSHOP and Wellcome, pulled all liquid milk by Mengniu from shelves Friday. A day earlier, Hong Kong had recalled milk, yogurt, ice cream and other products made by Yili Industrial Group Co. Starbucks Corp. said its 300 cafes in China had pulled milk supplied by Mengniu. Seattle-based Starbucks said no employees or customers had fallen ill from the milk. And Singapore called on retailers Friday to remove a Chinese-made yogurt bar from stores because the product may be contaminated.
The scandal began with complaints over milk powder by Sanlu Group Co. – one of China’s best-known and most respected brands. But it quickly became a much larger problem as government tests found that one-fifth of the companies producing baby milk powder had melamine in their products. Melamine is a toxic industrial chemical that can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. It has no nutritional value but is high in nitrogen, making products with it appear higher in protein. Suppliers trying to cut costs are believed to have added it to watered-down milk to cover up the resulting protein deficiency.
The scandal is the latest in a series of problems with tainted products made in China. The crisis has raised doubts about the effectiveness of tighter controls China promised after a series of food safety scares in recent years over contaminated seafood, toothpaste and a pet food ingredient tainted with melamine. Though most of the suspect dairy products are only sold domestically, two of the companies involved exported baby formula to five countries in Asia and Africa. Other products such as milk, yogurt and ice cream went to Hong Kong, while Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority, known as AVA, warned customers against eating Yili-brand Natural Choice Yogurt Flavoured Ice Bar with Real Fruit after Hong Kong food safety authorities said a sample of the product was found to contain low levels of melamine.
“As a precautionary measure, AVA has advised importers and retailers to remove this product from the market and withhold them from sale immediately, pending the result of AVA’s investigation and tests,” the authority said in a statement. “AVA advises consumers who have bought the implicated product not to consume them.” The AVA said it was testing other imported milk and dairy products from China for melamine contamination.
Two distributors said Friday that Sanlu ordered them to pull its baby formula off store shelves in early July, weeks before the company went public with the melamine contamination. The statements by the distributors in Hebei province, where Sanlu is headquartered, raise further questions about when the company and government knew milk powder being fed to babies was tainted with a banned chemical.
A New Zealand stakeholder in Sanlu has said it was told in early August, before the start of the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 8, that there was a problem. The dairy farmers’ group Fonterra, which owns 43 per cent of Sanlu Group, told the New Zealand government, which informed Chinese officials. The public was not told until Sept. 11 that the powder, used in baby formula and other products, was laced with melamine. “We were asked by Sanlu to take all their 2007 to July 2008 baby powder off the shelves in early July” and replace it with new powder, said one of the distributors, Zhang Youqiang.
“Then things got weird. In early August, they came to us again and said all the new Sanlu baby milk powder we had just put on the shelves” did not meet a certain government standard unrelated to product quality, said Zhang, who declined to give his company name for fear of offending Sanlu. He said it was not clear what the standard was that had not been met. Zhang said he now has warehouses full of contaminated milk powder and is trying to get refunds from Sanlu. Another distributor, Liang Jianqiang, said he was also trying to get money from Sanlu. He also took Sanlu baby milk powder out of stores in July.
“They told me there would be a new formula that’s better quality. They did this again in August and September,” he said. Liang also did not want to disclose the name of his company. Phone calls to Sanlu rang unanswered Friday and its website was not working. China’s quality watchdog did not respond after asking to be sent a fax with questions. The quality watchdog said it intended to “severely punish those who are responsible,” according to a notice posted on the agency’s website. It said all the batches that tested positive were being recalled.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:23 am
It astounds me that “stakeholders” and “corporations” and “governments” are the first to know about a fatally serious situation like this that gets hidden from the public and suppliers (who just keep selling their “quality” goods(?)) and the last to know are the consumers.
RR’s statement that “Tainted baby formula has been blamed for killing four infants and sickening 6,200 in China since the scandal broke last week. Some 1,300 babies, mostly newborns, are currently in hospitals and 158 of them are suffering from acute kidney failure. Thousands of parents across the country were bringing their children to hospitals for health checks”
Why are the most helpless ones - newborns and babies- disregarded in the name of making a better profit but putting a poison into their milk/formula? and why would the gov’t AGAIN be covering it up with empty promises and lies. My heart goesout to all those families who have lost - and who are losing their babies due to corporate greed.
September 20th, 2008 at 5:24 am
I think the manager of the company mentioned how the public is overly concerned over a couple of deaths caused by the milk powder and that tests for the it is unnecessary.
September 20th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Sheesh…sadly, I can see that being said.
September 21st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
An update by CM–I’ll reprint a few lines at the top here, to show the extent of the problem and the motives for not acting sooner:
Questions have been raised about whether officials sought to cover up contamination of powdered milk, in part to avoid a scandal around the Aug. 8-24 Olympics. The company at the heart of the scandal, Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group, received complaints about its infant milk formula as early as March, and local officials were notified in early August at the latest.
A vice governor of Hebei province, where Sanlu is located, told reporters this past week that two suppliers detained this month admitted they had been adding melamine to milk for three years.
China sought Saturday to shore up public confidence weakened by a milk safety scandal, with the president scolding officials for negligence and government agencies promising adequate supplies of uncontaminated milk. The flurry of action comes as the government confronts one of the worst food safety crises in years. Many leading brands of powdered and liquid milk and other dairy products have been pulled from store shelves after infant formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine sickened more than 6,200 children and left four dead. In a measure of the scandal’s scope, the Ministry of Health ordered all 31 provinces and major cities nationwide to set up separate 24-hour crisis hot lines to meet surging public calls and help arrange care for the sick. The order followed a barrage of instructions late Friday from the State Council, China’s Cabinet, requiring hospitals to provide free medical care.
To further calm public jitters, the top economic agencies promised to monitor markets for supply disruptions and for any price-gouging in sales of powdered milk - a staple in rural China. “Market supplies of powdered milk not tainted with melamine are sufficient,” the Xinhua News Agency quoted the Commerce Ministry as saying. State-run newspapers and national China Central Television ran lists of brands and products that were cleared of safety violations and deemed safe. In Beijing and Shanghai, grocery stores where dairy sections were emptied by recalls Friday displayed thinly stocked shelves of milk by Saturday afternoon, mostly imported or from the China operations of Nestle SA and other foreign-owned dairies.
The apparently widespread contamination has rapidly become a political headache for a Communist government that hoped to be basking in praise for last month’s successful Beijing Olympics. Instead, the government is coping with an apparent cover-up by local officials and being forced to rebuild public trust. “Some officials have ignored public opinion and turned a blind eye to people’s hardships, even on major problems that affect people’s lives and safety,” President Hu Jintao said in a speech Friday to senior Communist Party members. “We must learn a painful lesson.” Though Hu did not directly mention the contaminated milk - and the comment was but a small part of largely dry, wide-ranging policy speech - the quote was prominently reported by state media.
Tainted, substandard food and medicines have plagued China for years as companies freed by free-market reforms and lax government oversight rushed to meet swelling demand created by rising living standards. Last year, the government promised to overhaul safety regimes after medicines, toys and pet foods killed and sickened people and pets in North and South America and other export markets. On Saturday, Japan joined Singapore and Chinese-ruled Hong Kong in recalling Chinese-made dairy products. The Marudai Food Co. issued a recall of cream buns, pork buns and three other products as a precaution because they were made by its Chinese subsidiary using milk from Chinese dairy giant Yili Industrial Group Co., which sold tainted products. Dutch dairy company Friesland Foods said Saturday it is recalling all of its plastic-bottled milk in Hong Kong and Macau. The recall of Dutch Lady-brand milk came a day after Singapore authorities found the industrial chemical melamine in the brand’s strawberry milk manufactured in China. Friesland Foods Hong Kong said it ordered the recall “as a measure of precaution,” even though local tests had shown its dairy products were free of melamine.
Yet the tainted milk is chiefly a domestic scandal in China with broad dimensions, striking products nationwide and endangering children. Even worse, many families are allowed to have only one child under strict family planning limits. In recent days tests by government inspectors found melamine in powdered and liquid milk samples from 22 dairy companies - including industry titans like Yili, Mengniu Dairy Group Co. - prompting the recalls. Melamine is a chemical used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen. When added to milk, tests register the melamine’s nitrogen as protein. Though health experts believe ingesting minute amounts poses no danger, melamine can cause kidney stones, which can lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable. Suppliers, squeezed by higher costs for fertilizer, feed, gas and labor, are believed to have turned to melamine to cover up the fact that milk was being watered down to make more money.