China, Milk, and Melamine
Posted On January 14, 2011
Chinese products have gotten a bad reputation. It seems like every time you turn around there is some new issue about products that are sourced from China: everything from our toys, to our milk, to our baby food.
Americans fuss and fume over the possibility that some independent agency needs to safeguard our food supply. But in China, it seems like we have a petri dish in which the lack of any adult supervision produces products that end up killing people.
And, yes, individuals responsible are jailed or even executed on the back end … but that does nothing for the families who were hurt by the unsafe products on the front end!
As early as last July, samples of milk powder found in northwest China’s Gansu and Qinghai provinces had levels of melamine up to 500 times the permitted limit, underscoring the lax enforcement of food safety in the country.
Melamine is the same chemical that killed several babies in a milk powder scandal in 2008.
Thirty-eight people were awaiting trial, the report said, adding that Chinese authorities have seized 2,132 tons of melamine-tainted milk powder. “They were found to have used melamine-tainted milk powder as raw material to produce dairy products or sell such dairy products,” Xinhua cited the commission as saying. The latest crackdown identified “loopholes in the quality control system of dairy products”, Xinhua said, citing the statement.
The exposure of tainted milk products in poor and remote parts of China’s northwest has underscored the persistence of food safety problems that have alarmed consumers and sparked criminal scandals that led to executions and official sackings.
A total of 191 officials were punished, with 26 fired, Xinhua said.
In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 children fell ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial compound added to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high results in protein tests.
China executed two people in November 2009 for their role in the scandal, but has also kept a tight lid on public discontent over the case, jailing a man who organized a website for parents of children who became ill.
Melamine can cause kidney stones, and is used to make plastics, fertilizers and concrete. Its high nitrogen content allows protein levels to appear higher when added to milk or animal feed, allowing traders to disguise substandard products.
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