China's poison milk kills three children and leaves 6,000 sick
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
UPDATED: 14:32 EDT, 17 September 2008
A mother nurses her sick child, one of thousands to fall ill in China after drinking milk made from contaminated powder.
Three infants have been killed by the powder, which was laced with the compound melamine, while 158 are fighting acute kidney failure.
The number of sick children has hit 6,244, said Chinese health minister Chen Zhu.
Milk recall: A Chinese woman takes care of her child hospitalised after drinking contaminated milk powder in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province
The scandal has triggered a recall of exports, sacking of officials, detention of a sacked company executive and the launch of reforms for the dairy industry.
A government investigation showed a fifth of 109 dairy producers checked made batches of products adulterated with melamine.
The compound, found in plastics and fertilisers, can be used to fool milk quality checks by giving an artificially high protein rating.
Melamine is rich in nitrogen, and standard tests for protein in food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.
So far four milk suppliers to the country's biggest baby powder maker, the Sanlu Group, have been arrested.
Two brothers are accused of adding an industrial chemical to milk which they then sold to Sanlu.
Worried: A father stands by his ill son holding a packet of contaminated formula
The firm, which is partly owned by New Zealand dairy farmers’ cooperative Fonterra, has now been ordered to cease production pending an investigation.
The brothers are accused of selling Sanlu about three tons of contaminated milk a day, Hebei police spokesman Shi Guizhong said.
China’s Health Ministry said a total of 1,253 babies have been sickened after drinking the formula.
Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei told a news conference that 913 of the infants were only slightly affected and their condition was not considered life threatening.
Illness: A child receives treatment for kidney stones after consuming tainted milk formula
However, 340 remained in hospital and 53 cases were considered especially severe, he said.
No information was given about the fatalities.
Critics have claimed the problem had been known of for weeks, but had been hushed up because China did not want bad publicity during the Olympics.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said today that she had learned of the problem on September 5.
She convened a meeting of senior ministers three days later at which she ordered officials to directly inform senior authorities in Beijing.
At the time provincial Chinese officials appeared to be dragging their feet in ordering a recall.
Off the shelves: A trolley is piled up with the tainted milk formula that has been recalled
‘We were the whistle blowers and they leapt in and ensured there was action on the ground,’ Clark told reporters.
‘At a local level ... I think the first inclination was to try and put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall,’ she said.
Fonterra said it had urged Sanlu to recall the product as early as six weeks ago. Sanlu did not order a recall until last Thursday.
Chinese officials have defended their response to the country’s latest product safety disaster but blamed Sanlu Group for delays in warning the public.
Inspectors will check the country’s 175 baby milk food factories and their findings will be released within two days, Li said.
Treatment: Thousands of concerned parents have been rushing their babies to hospitals in China
The incident is an embarrassing failure for China’s product safety system, which was overhauled in an attempt to restore consumer confidence after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.
The milk scandal is especially damaging because it involves a major Chinese food company and the government expects such companies to act as industry role models for safety and quality.
Shoddy and fake goods are common in China, and infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.
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