13,000 children hospitalised in China milk scare

[IceCold]

Updated at: 0008 PST, Monday, September 22, 2008

BEIJING: China said nearly 13,000 children were in hospital Sunday after drinking toxic milk powder in a dramatic escalation of Beijing's latest safety scandal.

As the World Health Organization questioned Beijing's handling of the crisis, premier Wen Jiabao appeared on state television promising to head off further incidents.

But a Hong Kong toddler also became the first child affected outside the mainland and more countries moved to bar Chinese milk products.

The health ministry said 12,892 infants were in hospital with 104 babies in serious condition, according to the official news agency.

Some 1,579 babies had been "cured" and discharged, the ministry said, adding that hospitals nationwide had seen almost 40,000. At least four children have died from drinking poisonous baby formula.

The scandal stems from the practice of adding industrial chemical melamine, normally used to make plastics, to watered-down milk to boost apparent protein levels.

Melamine, which causes urinary problems including kidney stones, was first discovered in baby formula and then in liquid milk, yoghurt and ice-cream, leading to mass recalls.

The problem first came to light last week in state-controlled media but New Zealand dairy Fonterra, which has a joint venture with China's Sanlu, has said it knew for weeks and had been pushing for a recall.

Some Chinese press reports have said the scam had been going on for years, with the country's chaotic and corrupt food safety system unable to detect or prevent it.

Shigeru Omi, Western Pacific director of the UN's World Health Organization, on Sunday raised concerns the matter was not reported earlier.

 

[IceCold]

This is really unfortunate. I seriously hope that the people involved in it gets what they deserve. How could they just play with the lives of innocent children.

 

[IceCold]

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- As the number of Chinese infants reported sickened by tainted milk increased to 53,000, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called manufacturers "heartless" and promised stricter laws to protect the public.

1 of 2 China's Health Ministry said Sunday that about 13,000 children were hospitalized, while another 40,000 had undergone outpatient treatment for illnesses related to suspected melamine-tainted milk products.

At least four children have died.

The latest statistics from mainland China come after Hong Kong reported that a 3-year-old girl has been sickened by a suspected melamine-tainted milk product -- the first known illness outside of mainland China.

The Chinese premier visited Beijing hospitals and a supermarket Sunday to show his concern for the crisis.

"What we need to do now is to ensure that nothing like this happens in the future, not only in dairy products, but in all foods," he said. "Manufacturers and owners of dairy companies should show more morality and social responsibility in these cases. They are heartless, so we have to create strict law and legislation. I'm sorry."

Chinese investigators have arrested at least 18 people in connection with the tainted milk case.

Investigators arrested two brothers who sold milk used to produce the contaminated baby milk powder last week. They could face death if convicted, according to China Daily, a state-run newspaper.

The raw milk had been watered down and the chemical added to fool quality checks, the newspaper said. Melamine is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants. Watch CNN visit the company at the center of the scandal

Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation. It also robs infants of much-needed nutrition.

Thousands of tons of the tainted milk powder have been recalled.

Melamine is the same industrial contaminant from China that poisoned and killed thousands of U.S. dogs and cats last year.

The chemical, a byproduct of plastic manufacturing, can be used to mimic high-protein additives. Learn more about the chemical melamine »

The child in Hong Kong was diagnosed with a kidney stone at Princess Margaret Hospital, the government reported, citing a hospital statement. Although tests are still ongoing, her illness is suspected to be linked to consuming milk products containing melamine, the hospital statement said.

The child has been released, and her condition will be monitored, it said.

Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection said Sunday it had received no new confirmed reports of kidney disease related to consuming milk products tainted with melamine.

Officials said a dozen people, ages 1 to 17, were undergoing tests to determine whether they had ingested bad milk products, and a hotline for inquiries had received 195 calls by Sunday evening.

Included in that number were 10 males and six females -- ages 4 to 55 -- who described symptoms of possible kidney problems, including difficult or painful urination and changes in the frequency of urination, officials said.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety announced Sunday that a sample of Nestle Dairy Farm Pure Milk, sold in one-liter packs for catering use only, had tested positive for melamine. But the Swiss company said in a news release it is "confident" none of its milk products made in China contains the chemical.

The officials asked that retail sales of the milk for catering be halted, and that Nestle recall the product.

"The level of melamine detected in the Nestle sample was 1.4 ppm (parts per million), which the center believed is low. However, small children should not consume the product," the center said.

The other 64 samples were free from the toxic substance, according to the Hong Kong government Web site.

In a news release on its Web site, Nestle did not address the report regarding its Dairy Farm Pure Milk, but it disputed press reports that -- according to Nestle -- said melamine was found in its powdered toddler milk formula, NESLAC Gold 1+, designed for children ages 1 to 3.

"Following press reports in Hong Kong earlier today claiming that traces of melamine had been found in a Nestle growing up milk, Nestle is confident that none of its products in China is made from milk adulterated with melamine," the company said.

"The Hong Kong Government's Food and Environmental Health Department has just released a report declaring that NESLAC Gold 1+, which was mentioned in the media reports, is safe and that no melamine was detected in the product," Nestle said.

The company, based in Vevey, Switzerland, said NESLAC Gold 1+ also was tested by at least two government-approved, independent laboratories, and none of them detected melamine in the mixture.

"Over 70 different tests are routinely conducted in the course of producing infant formula and other milk products," Nestle said. "In fact, the Chinese authorities have issued official certificates for all tested Nestli products stating that no melamine has been detected in any of them."


Nestle noted that "melamine is found throughout the food chain across the world in minute traces which do not represent any health risk for consumers." It noted that a 3-year-old would have to consume over 40 liters of milk that contained 2 ppm of melamine to exceed internationally recognized safety limits, which vary by country.

The Chinese State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the amount of the chemical found in the milk would not cause ill effects in adults who drank less than two liters a day.

China: 53,000 infants ill from tainted milk - CNN.com

 

[kvLin]

This is the worst thing ever in China's food industry. lots of senior officials resigned or kicked downstairs.

 

[gpit]

This tragedy puts the ugly face of ferocious power and insatiable greediness of capital into a full display.

See how sarcastic it is:

The company (Sanlu) prided itself in its stringent quality control procedures, boasting its extremely rigorous tests on its products. "Made in China", a special edition of the CCTV program "Quality Reports Weekly" aired on 2 September 2007 focussed on the company, who claimed over 1,000 different tests were carried out before its products leave the factory.[7][8] To that end, on 8 January 2008, it was awarded second prize at the 2007 National Scientific Techniques Awards in the category of 'Innovative infant formula research and other related techniques'.[9] A number of its products were exempt from government inspection for having passed government quality checks three times in succession.

Sanlu Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To improve the Chinese system, people must realize:

1) Capital and capitalism must be reined and can never be trusted.

2) It’s high time to terminate the thousand-year tradition of cover-up in Chinese bureaucracy. Promotion should be based on how many problems solved by the official, not how few problem appeared during his tenure.

3) Without improving the system, only rotation of officials won’t prevent the problem from happening again. The improvement includes, among others, promoting active monitoring media and awarding conscience citizens.

 

[gpit]

Who's to blame for China's milk scandal? - upiasia.com

Beijing, China — China’s poisoned milk problem is growing in intensity, with at least six infant deaths reported and nearly 13,000 babies hospitalized after drinking tainted milk, according to a Health Ministry official. As many as 53,000 children have fallen ill.
The problem has also spread further afield, with tainted products pulled from grocery shelves in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. These include instant coffee mixes made with Chinese powdered milk and even milk-based candies.

Two weeks after the crisis became public, people are beginning to ask who is responsible for this huge breach of food safety standards. The government is realizing that it needs more than a quick fix to the problem – it must take strong and effective measures to allay fears over food safety, both at home and abroad.

On Monday, the head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Li Changjiang, resigned. The same day, Beijing fired Wu Xiangguo, Communist Party secretary of Shijiazhuang city, home to dairy company Sanlu that produced the toxic infant formula that sparked the latest crisis. Wu was blamed for failing to test the company’s milk products despite having received complaints as early as last December, and for failing to alert the provincial and national governments to the problem once it was discovered.

Starting in 2000, China initiated a system of exempting certain “high-quality” products from regular inspections after they had passed three consecutive quality tests. The exemptions were frequently granted to big companies with high sales figures. Among these were Sanlu, Mengniu and Yili – all milk producers whose products have recently been found to contain the toxic chemical melamine.

The state exemption system created a number of problems, however. It allowed authorities to offer the exemption in exchange for benefits, permitted official negligence, and opened opportunities for industry players to cut corners – even at the expense of public health.

“Exempting products from quality tests is illegal,” stated Professor He Bing, deputy head of the Law School at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, who has long questioned the validity of this system. China’s Product Quality Law stipulates that products that may harm human health and safety should be inspected to maintain their quality, he said. Therefore, granting exemptions to big companies was unacceptable, and was intended to provide opportunities for graft, he believes.

In He’s analysis, allowing exemptions from safety inspections represented official negligence, forcing consumers to take risks when they purchased uninspected food products. It also placed the state at risk in that it would have to pay compensation to consumers in the event of a mishap – like the one the state is now facing over milk products.

Further, He pointed out that by declaring certain products to be high-quality and exempt from inspections, the state was in fact promoting those products.

The state’s quality inspection administration finally announced last week that exemptions from inspection would no longer be granted for food products. Many online critics have suggested that exemptions for other products, particularly medicines, should also be abandoned.

Wang Liping, associate professor at the Fujian Provincial Committee Party School, believes that this type of scandal and other manmade accidents that plague China are related to the lack of democracy, as there is no balance of power to prevent people in authority from acting with impunity. It’s time to return political power to the ordinary people, he says.

Even President Hu Jintao, speaking at a Party seminar on Friday, criticized “some Party leaders” for being insensitive to public safety and turning a deaf ear to the people’s sufferings.

Dr. Lai Hongyi, an expert on China issues at the University of Nottingham in Britain, said that China cannot effectively improve its food safety system within a short period of time. He said that despite 30 years of reform, China’s system is still just a “primitive capitalism,” focused on economic growth, but with little concern for the legal and moral foundations necessary for a sound capitalist system.

Lai said that four conditions are necessary to improve the situation – a sound legal system, higher moral standards among the people, better government supervision and citizens’ participation in government. Only when these are achieved can things like food safety be guaranteed, he said.

 

[bernard]

quality of chinese products is always a concern,previously when toy paint controversy was raised,china lost its toy market,many countries banned these products as it was harmful to children's overall growth and some neurological problems was inevitable because of the chemical in the toy material,

now this milk product, its sure communists have hidden correct no of death and sick children, after all more than 20 companies are involved,

it seems that chinese are in a blind race to capture markets by selling as cheap as possible and specially degraded products in their own country maybe not for exports, luckily all these things surface in their own country and not in other otherwise that may harm their business permanently and people in other countries as well since chinese products are present everywhere.

 

[dr.umer]

quality of chinese products is always a concern,previously when toy paint controversy was raised,china lost its toy market,many countries banned these products as it was harmful to children's overall growth and some neurological problems was inevitable because of the chemical in the toy material,

now this milk product, its sure communists have hidden correct no of death and sick children, after all more than 20 companies are involved,

it seems that chinese are in a blind race to capture markets by selling as cheap as possible and specially degraded products in their own country maybe not for exports, luckily all these things surface in their own country and not in other otherwise that may harm their business permanently and people in other countries as well since chinese products are present everywhere.

As Chinses products seem so much of concern to you, I wounder what your comment would be on $20 billion in bilateral trade by 2008 between China and India?

 

[Spring Onion]

quality of chinese products is always a concern,previously when toy paint controversy was raised,china lost its toy market,many countries banned these products as it was harmful to children's overall growth and some neurological problems was inevitable because of the chemical in the toy material,

now this milk product, its sure communists have hidden correct no of death and sick children, after all more than 20 companies are involved,

it seems that chinese are in a blind race to capture markets by selling as cheap as possible and specially degraded products in their own country maybe not for exports, luckily all these things surface in their own country and not in other otherwise that may harm their business permanently and people in other countries as well since chinese products are present everywhere.

Still even the US markets are also flooded with Chines products
If you think their products are not worth buying then why these countries import these products.

After all China does not sell them at Gun point.

 

[dr.umer]

Still even the US markets are also flooded with Chines products
If you think their products are not worth buying then why these countries import these products.

After all China does not sell them at Gun point.

Agreed.

This chap is falsely generalizing the quality of Chinese's quality. Incidents like these are not a common occurrences.

If any country's economic situation allows to draw feasibility to import non-Chinese's products, they are most welcome to do it.

 

[bernard]

Still even the US markets are also flooded with Chines products
If you think their products are not worth buying then why these countries import these products.

After all China does not sell them at Gun point.

jana : thanks for your imformative post,
by the way i was putting some factual points,nothing personal, no hatred here

As Chinses products seem so much of concern for you, I wounder what your comment would be on $20 billion in bilateral trade by 2008 between China and India?

yes, and it will increase from present $35 bn +( not 20 bn) to upto $225 bn in 2015, the spread of chinese products is because of their low cost,quality is always a concern and u can ask any economist there.

 

[Spring Onion]

jana : thanks for your imformative post,
by the way i was putting some factual points,nothing personal, no hatred here

yes, and it will increase from present $35 bn +( not 20 bn) to upto $225 bn in 2015, the spread of chinese products is because of their low cost,quality is always a concern and u can ask any economist there.

well frannkly speaking you had also accepted the fact that Chines products are much cheaper than ours simple as that.

I had read a news from some western sources sometimes back which said that American markets are flooded with Chines good ranging from as small a thing as toothpast due to cheap prices.

If countries are willing to compromise on quality then there is no point we can blam Chian for that.


I cant say about the Western countries but honestly spealing many products in third world countries including India, Pakistan and some other, the products manufactured localy are as bad quality as any of the chines products could be but still these are costly so why not to go for the Chines one.

 

[bernard]

well frannkly speaking you had also accepted the fact that Chines products are much cheaper than ours simple as that.

I had read a news from some western sources sometimes back which said that American markets are flooded with Chines good ranging from as small a thing as toothpast due to cheap prices.

If countries are willing to compromise on quality then there is no point we can blam Chian for that.

its a commonsense and a general infomation that chinese products are less costly, no need of separately accepting it, ithink u missed the text in my post, other visitors wont

by the way thanks for ur infomative post again

I cant say about the Western countries but honestly spealing many products in third world countries including India, Pakistan and some other, the products manufactured localy are as bad quality as any of the chines products could be but still these are costly so why not to go for the Chines one.

please give links ,in case of India

 

[dr.umer]

yes, and it will increase from present $35 bn +( not 20 bn) to upto $225 bn in 2015, the spread of chinese products is because of their low cost,quality is always a concern and u can ask any economist there.

My statistics of $20 bn bilateral trade were based on this press report. May be you are having some other report with you.

My friend either we can go for the highest quality from some western country or we can save some money. I am having personal trading experience with China and I can tell you that even Chinese's qualities are having A, B or C for the same product. "A" quality is expensive of all and comes with warranty of the product (mostly including international pick & drop). So I would say pay them more and get the "best" of Chinese.

During my business trips to China for purchase of generators, I have met many people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal etc and many of them were asking litterly that they didn't care for quality, they just wanted more quantity. So when that product comes to our countries and we purchase that, we are quick to blame that Chinese's products are of low quality ignoring the fact what "unethical business practice" importer has remained involved in to "increase" the quantity with compromising "quality".

Also I would like to add further that if some product is being imported by State Govt, it is their responsibility as well to get the quality of that product checked before importing. Similarly, if any local importer is purchasing a product, he is free to get the quality of product checked by "international quality certification agencies". Chisese don't stop us to do that.

 

[Spring Onion]

please give links ,in case of India

link for the quality ???

Well how can i send you the things i bought in India during my visit that too at a higher price but trust me the product starts exposing its worth within 5 days

Wont mention all just one small thing and that is some jewlery product, the ear-rings, it cost me reasonbly high but when i landed back after only 5 days the ear-rings turned coal black only the artificial diamon it was still the same.

And believe me i found some Chines made ear-rings costing as low as Rs50 much better than that.

Similar is the case for Pakistani products (excluding few best quality ones), which are not better than Chines ones.