2008 Chinese milk scandal
Encyclopedia
Food safety incidents in the People's Republic of China
Food safety incidents in the People's Republic of China have received increased international media scrutiny following the reform and opening of the country, and its joining the World Trade Organization. in urban areas have become more aware of food safety as their incomes rise. Food safety...
in the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, involving milk and infant formula
Infant formula
Infant formula is a manufactured food designed and marketed for feeding to babies and infants under 12 months of age, usually prepared for bottle-feeding or cup-feeding from powder or liquid . The U.S...
, and other food materials and components, adulterated
Adulterant
An adulterant is a chemical substance which should not be contained within other substances for legal or other reasons. Adulterants may be intentionally added to more expensive substances to increase visible quantities and reduce manufacturing costs or for some other deceptive or malicious purpose...
with melamine
Melamine
Melamine is an organic base and a trimer of cyanamide, with a 1,3,5-triazine skeleton. Like cyanamide, it contains 66% nitrogen by mass and, if mixed with resins, has fire retardant properties due to its release of nitrogen gas when burned or charred, and has several other industrial uses....
.
By November 2008, China reported an estimated 300,000 victims, with six infants dying from kidney stone
Kidney stone
A kidney stone, also known as a renal calculus is a solid concretion or crystal aggregation formed in the kidneys from dietary minerals in the urine...
s and other kidney damage
Renal failure
Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood...
, and a further 860 babies hospitalised. The chemical appeared to have been added to milk to cause it to appear to have a higher protein content. In a separate incident four years before, watered-down milk had resulted in 13 infant deaths from malnutrition.
The scandal broke on 16 July, after sixteen infants in Gansu Province, who had been fed on milk powder produced by Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang is the capital and largest city of North China's Hebei province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about south of Beijing...
-based Sanlu Group
Sanlu Group
Sanlu Group was a state-owned Chinese dairy products company based in Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei Province. It was one of the oldest and most popular brands of infant formula in China. New Zealand's Fonterra owned 43% of Sanlu....
, were diagnosed with kidney stones."The tainted baby formula scandal was exposed on 16 July after 16 babies who were fed on milk made from powder produced by Hebei Province-based Sanlu Group in northwest China's Gansu Province were found to have developed kidney stones."Xinhua, 23 September 2008 After the initial focus on Sanlu - market leader in the budget segment - government inspections revealed the problem existed to a lesser degree in products from 21 other companies, including Mengniu
Mengniu
China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited is a manufacturing and distribution company of dairy products and ice cream in the People's Republic of China...
, Yili
Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Company
Yili Group is a privately-owned company of dairy industry in China. It is engaged in processing and manufacturing of milk products, including ice-cream, milk powder, milk tea powder, sterilized milk and fresh milk under "Yili" brand. It is headquartered in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia...
, and Yashili
Yashili
Yashili is a milk and soymilk products company based in Chaoan, Guangdong, China.In addition to the headquarters in Chaoan, Yashili has production facilities in Heilongjiang, Shanxi, Zhengzhou.-2008 baby milk scandal:...
.
The issue raised concerns about food safety and political corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
in mainland China, and damaged the reputation of China's food exports, with at least 11 countries stopping all imports of mainland Chinese dairy products.
A number of criminal prosecutions occurred, with two people being executed, another given a suspended death penalty, three others received life imprisonment, two received 15-year jail terms, and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) were fired or forced to resign.
The World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
referred to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it had had to deal with in recent years, and that the crisis of confidence among Chinese consumers would be hard to overcome. A spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was "clearly not an isolated accident, [but] a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits."
In late October 2008, similar adulteration with melamine was discovered in eggs and possibly other food, traced to melamine being added to animal feed—despite a ban imposed in June 2007 following the scandal over pet food
2007 pet food recalls
The 2007 pet food recalls comprise the contamination and wide recall of many brands of cat and dog foods beginning in March 2007, and the ensuing developments involving the human food supply. The recalls in North America, Europe, and South Africa came in response to reports of renal failure in pets...
ingredients exported to the United States.
As of July 2010, Chinese authorities were still reporting some seizures of melamine-contaminated dairy product in some provinces, though it was unclear whether these new contaminations constituted wholly new adulterations or were the result of illegal reuse of material from the 2008 adulterations.
Melamine
Melamine is used to manufacture melamine-formaldehyde resinMelamine resin
Melamine resin or melamine formaldehyde is a hard, thermosetting plastic material made from melamine and formaldehyde by polymerization. In its butylated form, it is dissolved in n-butanol and xylene. It is then used to cross-link with alkyd, epoxy, acrylic and polyester resins, used in surface...
, a type of plastic known for its flame retardant properties and commonly employed in countertops, dry erase boards, etc. Melamine itself is nitrogen-rich and is sometimes illegally added to food products to increase their apparent protein content. It has also been employed as a nonprotein nitrogen
Non-protein nitrogen
Non-protein nitrogen is a term used in animal nutrition to refer collectively to components such as urea, biuret, and ammonia, which are not proteins but can be converted into proteins by microbes in the ruminant stomach...
, appearing in soy meal, corn gluten meal and cottonseed meal used in cattle feed. Melamine is known to cause renal
Renal failure
Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood...
and urinary problems in humans and animals when it reacts with cyanuric acid
Cyanuric acid
Cyanuric acid or 1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triol is a chemical compound with the formula 3. Like many industrially useful chemicals, this triazine has many synonyms. This white, odorless solid finds use as a precursor or a component of bleaches, disinfectants, and herbicides...
inside the body, sometimes present in drinking water and in animal feed, so its use in food production is universally banned.
The Kjeldahl
Kjeldahl method
The Kjeldahl method or Kjeldahl digestion in analytical chemistry is a method for the quantitative determination of nitrogen in chemical substances developed by Johan Kjeldahl in 1883.- Method :...
and Dumas
Dumas method
The Dumas method in analytical chemistry is a method for the quantitative determination of nitrogen in chemical substances based on a method first described by Jean-Baptiste Dumas over a century and a half ago....
methods used to test for protein levels fail to distinguish between nitrogen in melamine and naturally occurring in amino acid
Amino acid
Amino acids are molecules containing an amine group, a carboxylic acid group and a side-chain that varies between different amino acids. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen...
s, allowing the protein levels to be falsified. Introduced into milk, it can help conceal its fraudulent dilution with water. Melamine adulteration of food products also made headlines when pet food was recalled
2007 pet food recalls
The 2007 pet food recalls comprise the contamination and wide recall of many brands of cat and dog foods beginning in March 2007, and the ensuing developments involving the human food supply. The recalls in North America, Europe, and South Africa came in response to reports of renal failure in pets...
in Europe and the U.S. in 2007.
Source of contamination
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said melamine may be found "in a variety of milk and milk products at varying levels, from low ppb to ppm ranges." One academic suggested cyromazineCyromazine
Cyromazine is a triazine insect growth regulator used as an insecticide and an acaricide. It is a cyclopropyl derivative of melamine. Cyromazine works by affecting the nervous system of the immature larval stages of certain insects....
, a melamine derivative pesticide commonly used in China for a long time, is absorbed into plants as melamine; it may therefore have long been present in products such as poultry, eggs, fish, and dairy products. It is not known where in the supply chain the melamine was added to the milk. The chemical is not water soluble, and must be mixed with formaldehyde
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O. It is the simplest aldehyde, hence its systematic name methanal.Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent odor. It is an important precursor to many other chemical compounds, especially for polymers...
or another chemical before it can be dissolved in milk.
Due to poor animal husbandry, production and storage, the demand for milk far outstripping supplies, and the use of other potentially harmful chemical additives
Food additive
Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance.Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling , salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as in some wines...
such as preservative
Preservative
A preservative is a naturally occurring or synthetically produced substance that is added to products such as foods, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological samples, wood, etc. to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or by undesirable chemical changes....
s and hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is the simplest peroxide and an oxidizer. Hydrogen peroxide is a clear liquid, slightly more viscous than water. In dilute solution, it appears colorless. With its oxidizing properties, hydrogen peroxide is often used as a bleach or cleaning agent...
has been reported by independent media as being commonplace. Quality tests can be falsified with additives: peroxide is added to prevent milk going bad; industrial vegetable oil is emulsified
Emulsion
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible . Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids. Although the terms colloid and emulsion are sometimes used interchangeably, emulsion is used when both the dispersed and the...
and added to boost fat levels; whey
Whey
Whey or Milk Serum is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It is a by-product of the manufacture of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses. Sweet whey is manufactured during the making of rennet types of hard cheese like cheddar or Swiss cheese...
is used to increase lactose
Lactose
Lactose is a disaccharide sugar that is found most notably in milk and is formed from galactose and glucose. Lactose makes up around 2~8% of milk , although the amount varies among species and individuals. It is extracted from sweet or sour whey. The name comes from or , the Latin word for milk,...
content. However, the procurement chain is also implicated - milk agents are often politically well connected. Farmers report salespeople had, for years, been visiting farms in dairy areas hawking "protein powder" additives, which would often be delivered in unmarked brown paper bags of 25 kg each. A new version of "protein powder", capable of fooling dairies as to protein content, started being peddled approximately two years ago. Thus, farmers either added melamine contaminant unwittingly, or turned a blind eye to milk adulteration to ensure their milk was not rejected. The big dairy producers were complicit in producing "test-tube milk."
Caijing
Caijing
Caijing is an independent, Beijing-based magazine devoted to information on companies in China. The publication's title means "Finance and Economics Magazine." Caijing's driving mission is to have an "independent standpoint, exclusive coverage and unique perspective."- History :Caijing was...
reported "spiking fresh milk with additives such as melamine" was no longer a secret to Hebei dairy farmers for the past two years. Due to fierce competition for supplies, and the higher prices paid by Mengniu and Yili, Sanlu's procurement became squeezed; its inspection system became compromised "as early as 2005 and allowed milk collection stations to adopt unscrupulous business practices", while government supervision was "practically nonexistent."
Caijing also reported the melamine in the tainted milk may have come from scrap melamine costing ¥700 per tonne - less than one-tenth of the price of 99% pure industrial grade melamine. The melamine production process produces pure melamine by crystallisation; the melamine remaining in the mother liquor
Mother liquor
A mother liquor is the part of a solution that is left over after crystallization. It is encountered in chemical processes including sugar refining....
is impure (70%) and unusable for plastics, so it is scrapped. It said Sanlu's baby formula melamine content was a result of tampering by adding low cost vegetable protein (such as low grade soya powder), and large amounts of scrap melamine as filler."按照目前的三聚氰胺价格，在饲料甚至原料奶中添加这种物质，从经济上而言并不合算。如果奶粉或者液态奶中出现的三聚氰胺是由于添加三聚氰胺废料引起，那么值得担心的不仅仅是这种物质" Scrap melamine contains impurities such as cyanuric acid
Cyanuric acid
Cyanuric acid or 1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triol is a chemical compound with the formula 3. Like many industrially useful chemicals, this triazine has many synonyms. This white, odorless solid finds use as a precursor or a component of bleaches, disinfectants, and herbicides...
that form more insoluble crystals than melamine alone, aggravating the problem.
Victims
On 17 September 2008, Health Minister Chen Zhu stated tainted milk formula had "sickened more than 6,200 children, and that more than 1,300 others, mostly newborns, remain hospitalised with 158 suffering from acute kidney failure". By 23 September, about 54,000 children were reported to be sick and four had died. An additional 10,000 cases were reported from the provinces by 26 September. A World Health Organisation official said 82% of the children made ill were 2 years of age or below. The Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety said that 99% of the victims were aged under 3 years. Ten Hong Kong children were diagnosed with kidney problems, at least four cases were detected in Macau, and six in Taiwan. Non-human casualties included a lion cub and two baby orangutans which had been fed Sanlu milk powder at Hangzhou Zoo.The government said on 8 October it would no longer issue updated figures "because it is not an infectious disease, so it's not absolutely necessary for us to announce it to the public." Reuters compiled figures reported by local media across the country, and said the toll stood at nearly 94,000 at the end of September, excluding municipalities
Direct-controlled municipality
A direct-controlled municipality is the highest level classification for cities used by unitary state, with status equal to that of the provinces in the respective countries...
. Notably, 13,459 children had been affected in Gansu, Reuters quoted Xinhua saying. Henan had reported over 30,000 cases, and Hebei also had nearly 16,000 cases.
In late October, the government announced health officials had surveyed 300,000 Beijing families with children of less than 3 years of age. It disclosed approximately 74,000 families had a child who had been fed melamine-tainted milk, but did not reveal how many of those children had fallen ill as a result.
Due to the many months before the scandal was exposed, the media suggest the official figures are likely to be understated. Kidney stones in infants started being reported in several parts of China in the past two years. A number of yet to be officially acknowledged cases were reported on by the media. However, those deaths without an official verdict may be denied compensation. On 1 December, Xinhua reported that the Ministry of Health revised the number of victims to more than 290,000 and 51,900 hospitalised; authorities acknowledged receiving reports of 11 suspected deaths from melamine contaminated milk powder from provinces, but officially confirmed 3 deaths.
On characterisation and treatment of urinary stones in affected infants, the New England Journal of Medicine printed an editorial in March 2009, along with reports on cases from Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei.
Urinary calculi specimens were collected from 15 cases treated in Beijing and were analysed as unknown objects for their components at Beijing Institute of Microchemistry using infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and high performance liquid chromatography. The result of the analyses showed the calculi were composed of melamine and uric acid
Uric acid
Uric acid is a heterocyclic compound of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen with the formula C5H4N4O3. It forms ions and salts known as urates and acid urates such as ammonium acid urate. Uric acid is created when the body breaks down purine nucleotides. High blood concentrations of uric acid...
, and the molecular ratio of uric acid to melamine was around 2:1.
In a study published in 2010, researchers from Peking University studying ultrasound images of infants who fell ill in the 2008 contamination found while most children in a rural Chinese area recovered, 12% still showed kidney abnormalities six months later. "The potential for long-term complications after exposure to melamine remains a serious concern," the report said. "Our results suggest a need for further follow-up of affected children to evaluate the possible long-term impact on health, including renal function."
Sanlu
The scandal began with revelations of contamination of SanluSanlu Group
Sanlu Group was a state-owned Chinese dairy products company based in Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei Province. It was one of the oldest and most popular brands of infant formula in China. New Zealand's Fonterra owned 43% of Sanlu....
milk products. The New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra
Fonterra
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative owned by almost 10,500 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exceeding NZ$19.87 billion, is New Zealand's largest company.- History :In...
, which owned a 43% stake in Sanlu, said they were alerted to melamine contamination on 2 August (almost a month before the issue became public), and have said to have pushed hard for a full public recall
Product recall
A product recall is a request to return to the maker a batch or an entire production run of a product, usually due to the discovery of safety issues. The recall is an effort to limit liability for corporate negligence and to improve or avoid damage to publicity...
. Although there was an immediate trade recall, Fonterra said that local administrators refused an official recall.
Warning signs ignored
An agent from ShaanxiShaanxi
' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...
Jinqiao Dairy Company in northwest China reportedly publicly discussed his fears about unauthorised substances being added to competitors' milk. His complaints to regulators and dairy makers in 2005 and 2006 never yielded any result; his story was picked up by China Central Television, who ran a report complete with footage of adulteration in progress, yet the Shaanxi Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau said they failed to find evidence of wrongdoing.
The bulletin board of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) indicated a rare occurrence of kidney stones in children–all causally traced to Sanlu milk formula–was flagged by at least one member of the public in June 2008 and by a urologist in a paediatric hospital on 24 July 2008. Neither received definitive replies. The paediatrician, who specifically asked the AQSIQ to refer his observations to epidemiologists
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, was asked to refer his query to the health department.
In June, Jiangsu media reported a two-month surge in the number of babies diagnosed with kidney disease; in July, a parent of a sick baby in Hunan questioned Sanlu’s milk powder and complained to the AQSIQ. Gansu Province sent a report to the Ministry of Health on 16 July to alert that one local hospital had identified an increase in the incidence of kidney ailments among babies in the months earlier, and that most victims had consumed Sanlu’s baby formula. The health ministry sent investigators to Gansu in early August.
Cover-up allegations
Fonterra notified the New Zealand government on 5 September and three days later, the Prime MinisterPrime Minister of New Zealand
The Prime Minister of New Zealand is New Zealand's head of government consequent on being the leader of the party or coalition with majority support in the Parliament of New Zealand...
Helen Clark
Helen Clark
Helen Elizabeth Clark, ONZ is a New Zealand political figure who was the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand for three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2008...
had Beijing officials alerted directly. News reports began circulating in mainland China on 9 September,
the news broke internationally a day later by Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
. The state-controlled media report did not initially identify the company involved, postings on Tianya
Tianya Club
Tianya Club is an Internet forum in China; currently it is the 12th most visited site in the People's Republic of China and 72nd overall. It was founded on 14 February 1999.It provides BBS, blog, microblog and photo album services....
.cn, a Chinese social portal, named Sanlu as the culprit. Sanlu initially denied the allegations.
A State Council
State Council of the People's Republic of China
The State Council of the People's Republic of China , which is largely synonymous with the Central People's Government after 1954, is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the Premier and includes the heads of each governmental department and agency...
investigation revealed Sanlu began receiving complaints about sick infants as far back as December 2007, but did no tests until June 2008. It said leading government officials in Shijiazhuang city had failed to report the contamination to provincial and state authorities (until 9 September) in violation of rules on reporting major incidents involving food safety. According to the People's Daily
People's Daily
The People's Daily is a daily newspaper in the People's Republic of China. The paper is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , published worldwide with a circulation of 3 to 4 million. In addition to its main Chinese-language edition, it has editions in English,...
, Sanlu wrote a letter to Shijiazhuang city government on 2 August 2008, asking for help to "increase control and coordination of the media, to create a good environment for the recall of the company's problem products....to avoid whipping up the issue and creating a negative influence in society."
According to accounts confirmed by media reports and health officials, the company tried to buy off critics and cover up the contamination. In a memo dated 11 August, Beijing-based public relations agency Teller International advised Sanlu to seek cooperation with major search engines to censor negative information. The agency reportedly had repeatedly contacted key account staff at Baidu
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. , simply known as Baidu and incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a Chinese web services company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China....
and proposed a ¥3 million (US$440,000) budget to screen all negative news. After the memo began circulating on the internet, Baidu denounced, in a communiqué on 13 September 2008, the approaches by said agency on several occasions, saying the proposal was firmly rejected, as it violated their corporate principles of unbiased and transparent reporting.
Helen Clark said of the local government: "I think the first inclination was to try and put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall." Western media speculated China's desire for a perfect summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
contributed to the delayed recall of the baby milk, citing a guideline allegedly issued to Chinese media that reporting food safety issues, such as cancer-causing mineral water, was "off-limits" although the Central government denied issuing this guidance. Hebei provincial vice-governor said his administration was only notified by Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang is the capital and largest city of North China's Hebei province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about south of Beijing...
on 8 September. However, a journalist at Southern Weekend
Southern Weekend
Southern Weekly, also referred to as Southern Weekend is a weekly newspaper based in Guangzhou, China, and a sister publication of the newspaper Southern Daily...
wrote an investigative report in late July for publication about infants who had fallen ill after consuming milk powder from Sanlu. Six weeks later, senior editor Fu Jianfeng revealed on his personal blog that this report had been suppressed by authorities, due to the imminent Beijing Olympics. While this was happening, Sanlu was honoured in a national award campaign called "30 Years: Brands that Have Changed the Lives of Chinese." The press release on the award, written by a senior public relations manager at Sanlu, passed as news content on People's Daily and in other media.
Sanctions
On 15 September, the company issued a public apology for the contaminated milk powder; Sanlu was ordered to halt production, and to destroy all unsold and recalled products. Authorities reportedly seized 2,176 tons of milk powder in Sanlu's warehouses. An estimated 9,000 tons of product had been recalled.Tian Wenhua, Chairwoman and General Manager of Sanlu and Secretary of the Sanlu Communist Party chapter was stripped of her party and functional posts during an extraordinary meeting of the Hebei provincial standing committee of the CCP
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
; four Shijiazhuang officials, including vice mayor in charge of food and agriculture, Zhang Fawang, were reportedly removed from office. Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang is the capital and largest city of North China's Hebei province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about south of Beijing...
Mayor Ji Chuntang resigned on 17 September. Li Changjiang
Li Changjiang
Li Changjiang was minister and Communist Party of China party chief of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China .- Biography :...
, minister in charge of the AQSIQ, was forced to resign on 22 September after the State Council inquest concluded he was responsible for the "negligence in supervision". Investigators also blamed the Shijiazhuang government. Local Party Secretary Wu Xianguo was fired on the same day.
Arrests
Sanlu GM Tian was charged under Articles 144 and 150 of the criminal code. A spokesman for the Hebei Provincial Public Security Department said police had arrested 12 milk dealers and suppliers who allegedly sold contaminated milk to Sanlu, and six people were charged with selling melamine. Three hundred kg of suspicious chemicals, including 223 kg of melamine, were confiscated. Among those arrested were two brothers who ran a milk collection centre in Hebei for allegedly supplying three tonnes of adulterated milk daily to the dairy; the owner of another collection centre which resold seven tons of milk a day to Sanlu, was arrested, and his operation was shut down.Zhang Yujun (alias Zhang Haitao), a former dairy farmer from Hebei, produced more than 600 tons of a "protein powder" mixture of melamine and maltodextrin
Maltodextrin
Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide that is used as a food additive. It is produced from starch by partial hydrolysis and is usually found as a creamy-white hygroscopic spraydried powder. Maltodextrin is easily digestible, being absorbed as rapidly as glucose, and might be either moderately sweet or...
from September 2007 to August 2008. He and eight other traders, dairy farm owners and milk purchasers who bought the powder from him were arrested in early October, bringing the total to 36.
During the week of 22 December 2008, 17 people involved in producing, selling, buying and adding melamine in raw milk went on trial. Tian Wenhua, former Sanlu general manager, and three other company executives appeared in court in Shijiazhuang, charged with producing and selling milk contaminated with melamine. According to Xinhua, Tian pleaded guilty, and told the court she learned about the tainted milk complaints from consumers in mid-May. She then apparently headed a working team to handle the case, but did not report to the Shijiazhuang city government until 2 August.
The Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang sentenced Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping to death, and Tian Wenhua to life in prison, on 22 January 2009. Zhang was convicted for producing 800 tons of the contaminated powder, Geng for producing and selling toxic food. The China Daily reported Geng had knelt on the courtroom floor and begged the victim's families for forgiveness during the trial. The court also sentenced Sanlu deputy general managers Wang Yuliang and Hang Zhiqi to fifteen years and eight years in jail, respectively, and former manager Wu Jusheng to five years. Several defendants have appealed.
Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping were executed on 24 November 2009.
Effect on the company
The value of the company plunged as a result of the scandal. On 24 September, FonterraFonterra
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative owned by almost 10,500 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exceeding NZ$19.87 billion, is New Zealand's largest company.- History :In...
announced it had written down the carrying value of its investment by NZ$139 million (two-thirds), reflecting the costs of product recall and the impairment of the 'Sanlu' brand because of the "criminal contamination of milk". By 27 September, China Daily
China Daily
The China Daily is an English language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China.- Overview :China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in the country...
reported Sanlu was close to bankruptcy, and might be taken over by the Beijing Sanyuan Foods Company. The company is also facing lawsuits from parents (see Anger at Sanlu).
The Beijing Review said Sanlu expects to have to pay compensation claims totaling ¥700 million, and it became clear the company would be broken up and sold.
On 25 December, Shijiazhuang court accepted a creditor's bankruptcy petition against Sanlu. Media commentators expected the Sanlu distribution network to be sold.
Chinese majors
On 16 September, the AQSIQ released test of samples from 491 batches of products sold by all 109 companies producing baby milk powder. It said all 11 samples from Sanlu failed the melamine test. Sanlu, whose products sell at half the price of equivalents on the market, recorded the highest levels of contamination among all the samples tested, at 2,563 mg/kg or parts per million ("ppm"). Tainted samples were found among 21 other suppliers, where concentrations ranged from 0.09 to 619.00 ppm.There was melamine contamination in 10% of liquid milk samples from Mengniu and Yili, and 6% of those from Bright Dairy. On discovery of contamination, the three major producers were all stripped of their status as 'Chinese national brands'. Yili, Mengniu
Mengniu
China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited is a manufacturing and distribution company of dairy products and ice cream in the People's Republic of China...
and Bright Dairy & Food Co. recalled tainted milk powders and apologised in separate statements. Mengniu recalled all its baby formula, and trading in its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Hong Kong Stock Exchange
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in Hong Kong. It is Asia's third largest stock exchange in terms of market capitalization behind the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange and fifth largest in the world...
was suspended on 17 September. Shares in other dairy companies fell strongly the next day. Mengniu's CFO attempted to reassure consumers by offering a no-quibble refund on all products, and by drinking liquid milk in front of reporters in Hong Kong. He also said that its export products were less likely to be contaminated.
On 30 September, the AQSIQ announced test results of a further 265 batches milk powder produced by 154 different companies prior to 14 September, where it found 31 batches produced by 20 domestic dairy companies were tainted with melamine.
On 1 December, China's Ministry of Health issued an update, saying nearly 300,000 babies were sickened after consuming melamine-contaminated milk powder. In response to the surge of contaminated Chinese products, the United States Food and Drug Administration
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
opened its first overseas inspection offices in November 2008, with bureaus in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
Chinese industry
The State Council ordered the testing of product of all dairy producers, and to this end, some 5,000 inspectors were dispatched. The mainland Chinese market has grown at an average annual rate of 23% since 2000. In 2006, milk production reached 30 million tons, ten times the volume of a decade before. It was valued at some ¥122 billion (US$18 billion) in 2007, and consumers had severely lost confidence in the industry.The events have exposed the often-incestuous relationship between local business and local government. In addition to the tax revenues to local authorities - Sanlu contributed ¥330 million in 2007, many companies invite local officials to become "silent partners" in their corporations - in return for "protection" at the political level; former Sanlu chairman Tian Wenhua, was made honorary deputy to the Provincial People's Congress. The scandal has also highlighted structural problems of inadequate production volume, inherent quality issues, and poor production methods. The Inner Mongolia region produces over one-fourth of China's milk, and Mengniu and Yili have invested millions to establish state-of-the-art dairy facilities in its capital, Hohhot
Hohhot
Hohhot , is a city in north-central China and the capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, serving as the region's administrative, economic, and cultural centre....
. The companies still rely on small-scale farmers for over 90% of their production because of the capacity constraint of the modern facilities. Both companies were said by farmers and agents to have habitually purchased milk which failed quality tests, for only two-thirds the normal price. A new policy was put in place on 17 September to stop that practice.
Since the scandal erupted, sales have fallen by 30-40% on a comparative basis, according to the Chinese Dairy Association. The Association estimates the financial effect of the order of ¥20 billion, and forecasts that confidence may take up to two years to be fully restored.
"中國奶業協會常務理事王丁棉向記者透露,事件對伊利、蒙牛、光明這三大品牌一線企業的打擊與影響,是較嚴重的。 “ 他们的近期产品销售业绩已一落千丈,跌至同期数据的30%—40%。就全国乳品行业而言,它所受到的负面影响也是很大的,此场危机的最低谷波峰期可能要维持至2至3个月之久,至明年中期前仍会处于一个恢复期中。过了恢复期,市场应该开始有明显的反弹,整个事件的阴影淡化直到出现全面的复苏,也许还需要1至 2年的时间。但复苏的速度完全取决于消费者消费信心的恢复与树立。”
王丁棉感慨,这次事件对中国奶业造成的经济损失粗略估计应该超过200亿以上,可谓损失惨重。"
In an effort to prop up sales and retain their market share, dairy firms have cancelled their common accord not to use promotions
Sales promotion
Sales promotion is one of the four aspects of promotional mix. Media and non-media marketing communication are employed for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve product availability...
to fight the sales decline: substantial discounts (including BOGOF), free gifts and other point of sale
Point of sale
Point of sale or checkout is the location where a transaction occurs...
incentives were being offered to shoppers. Their new products are conspicuously labelled "safety inspection passed" to allay consumer fears.
"伊利、蒙牛都在产品包装箱的显著位置赫然加印上“安全合格”、“未检出三聚氰胺”等字样以消除消费者的疑虑"
Foreign operations in China
Mengniu-Arla, joint-venture between Danish/Swedish co-operative Arla FoodsArla Foods
Arla Foods is a Swedish-Danish cooperative based in Århus, Denmark, and the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia. Arla Foods was formed as the result of a merger between the Swedish dairy cooperative Arla and the Danish dairy company MD Foods on 17 April 2000.Arla Foods is the seventh...
and Mengniu halted production on 16 September 2008 after three of 28 tests taken from Mengniu showed traces of melamine; the contaminated batches had been recalled.
Mengniu, milk supplier to Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
, was replaced by Vitasoy
Vitasoy
Vitasoy is a brand of beverages and desserts in Hong Kong. Founded in 1940, it now operates under the Vitasoy International Holdings Limited based in Hong Kong....
when the coffee retailer eschewed milk in favour of soya milk in its China operations. KFC also suspended selling Mengniu milk.
Tokyo-headquartered Lotte Group, a major snacks maker, recalled its Koala's March cookies in Hong Kong and Macau because of contamination, and promised to "look deeply into all the details of the manufacturing process" to preserve customer confidence. The range was also ordered off Dutch and Slovakian shelves. Its Chocolate Pie was seized when samples tested positive in Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
.
On 29 September, British confectionery group Cadbury was forced to withdraw its 11 chocolate products in China,on suspicion of melamine contamination. In turn, causing them to close down its three factories in China. The recall affected the mainland China markets,as well as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Australia. Tests in Hong Kong found excessive amounts of melamine in China-made Dairy Milk products.
On 30 September, Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
recalled its Lipton
Lipton
Lipton is a brand of tea currently owned by Unilever.-History of Lipton Tea:Lipton was created at the end of the 19th century by a grocer, Sir Thomas Lipton, in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1893, he established the Thomas J. Lipton Co., a tea packing company with its headquarters and factory in Hobo ken,...
milk tea powder after the company's internal checks found traces of melamine in the Chinese milk powder used as an ingredient. Heinz
H. J. Heinz Company
The H. J. Heinz Company , commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is an American food company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Perhaps best known for its ketchup, the H.J...
recalled cases of baby cereal in Hong Kong after discovering they contained melamine. Nestlé's factory in Heilongjiang was also implicated: the Taiwanese Department of Health forced the delisting of six Neslac and KLIM products on 2 October for containing minute traces of melamine, although the minister said they did not pose a significant health risk.
Since the milk crisis broke, Nestlé says it has sent 20 specialists from Switzerland to five of its Chinese plants to strengthen chemical testing. On 31 October, it announced the opening of a $10.2 million Beijing research and development centre, to "serve as the base and the reference in food safety for Nestlé in Greater China." Nestlé Chief Technology Officer said the centre was equipped with "highly sophisticated analytical tools for detecting trace amounts of residues and undesirable compounds like melamine or veterinary drugs or natural toxins".
Olympics
There were concerns dairy products consumed during the 2008 Summer Olympic games2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
may have been contaminated. Li Changjiang, the then Director of AQSIQ reassured the international community that all the food, including dairy products, was indeed safe. "We took special quality management measures aimed at food supply for the Games."
Outside mainland China
PRC Customs said exports of dairy products and eggs in 2007 were valued at US$359 million, a year-on-year increase of 90%. Since the news of the melamine contamination began to circulate, at least 25 countries stopped importing Chinese dairy products. A number of countries have imposed blanket bans on Chinese milk products or its derivatives —among which areBangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
, Brunei
Brunei
Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
, Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
, Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Ivory Coast, Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
, Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Suriname
Suriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, Togo
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
, and the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
— joining Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia which have imposed specific bans on mainland Chinese dairy products which have tested positive for melamine. White Rabbit Creamy Candy
White Rabbit Creamy Candy
White Rabbit Creamy Candy is a brand of candy manufactured by Shanghai Guan Sheng Yuan Food, Ltd. in The People's Republic of China.- Background :...
was blacklisted after tests by health authorities around the world identified it as being contaminated.
European Union
On 25 September 2008, the EU announced a ban on imports of baby food containing Chinese milk. The European CommissionEuropean Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
also called for tighter checks on other Chinese food imports; isolated contaminated products were found in the Netherlands, and the French authorities ordered all Chinese dairy products off shelves; Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
removed White Rabbit as a precaution from its stores in the United Kingdom.
United States Food and Drug Administration
In the United States of America, which was otherwise unaffected by the scares, the US distributor of White Rabbit candies recalled the product when samples found in HartfordHartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
showed traces of melamine. The candy's maker and subsidiary of Bright Foods, Guan Sheng Yuan, issued a recall to the 50 countries to which it exported.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said while food containing melamine below 2.5 parts per million generally did not raise concerns, its scientists were "currently unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that does not raise public health concerns". On 12 November 2008 FDA issued a general alert against all finished food products from China, saying that information received from government sources in a number of countries indicates a wide range and variety of products from a variety of producers have been manufactured using melamine-contaminated milk was a recurring one problem. In late November, after FDA found traces of melamine in one Nestle and one Mead Johnson infant product, the FDA concluded melamine or cyanuric acid alone, "at or below 1 part per million in infant formula do not raise public health concerns" in babies.
International agencies
The European Food Safety AuthorityEuropean Food Safety Authority
The European Food Safety Authority is an agency of the European Union that provides independent scientific advice and communication on existing and emerging risks associated with the food chain, created by European Regulation 178/2002....
(EFSA) warned that children who ate large amounts of confectionery and biscuits with high milk content could theoretically be consuming melamine at more than three times above prescribed EU safety limits (0.5 mg/kg of body weight). The EFSA said children with a mean consumption of products such as milk toffee, biscuits and chocolate containing contaminated milk powder would not be at risk, and adults would not be at risk even in the worst case scenarios.
The World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
, which was only notified on 11 September, asked Beijing why it took so many months for the scandal to become public, and to establish whether failure was deliberate or due to ignorance. WHO's representative in China, Hans Troedsson, said the issue of who knew what and when was critical "...Because if it was ignorance, there is a need to have much better training and education ... if it is neglect, then it is, of course, more serious."
Following a spate of mass national bans, the WHO urged national food safety authorities on 25 September 2008 to test Chinese dairy products for health risks before slapping on import bans or recalls. WHO and UNICEF also jointly decried the "particularly deplorable... deliberate contamination of foods intended for... vulnerable infants and young children" On 26 September, the WHO warned health officials around the world to be alert for dairy products of Chinese origin that could be tainted. Anthony Hazzard, the Western Pacific director of the World Health Organization said countries had been advised by the International Food Safety Authorities (INFOSAN) to focus particularly on smuggled formula.
The WHO referred to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it has had to deal with in recent years. It says the crisis of confidence among Chinese consumers would be hard to overcome. It saw regulation failing to keep pace with the rapid development of the food and industrial production as opening the gates to all types of misbehaviour and malfeasance. The spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was "clearly not an isolated accident, [but] a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits."
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan
Margaret Chan
Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, OBE JP is the Director-General of the World Health Organization . Chan was elected by the Executive Board of the WHO on 8 November 2006, and was endorsed in a special meeting of the World Health Assembly on the following day...
reminded Chinese mothers that babies not breastfed
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
were being deprived of the best nutrition offered by nature, while risking being exposed to the effects of melamine. She added: "We need to try our very best to tell [mothers] the difference [between breast milk and formula]. Of course breastfeeding is the best food for babies." Chan said the melamine-in-milk scandal showed "the impact and power of globalisation" in food distribution and highlighted "the importance of seamless cooperation from farm to consumer."
Anger at Sanlu
The case brought anger and resentment at milk producers and sowed uncertainty and confusion among the population. Queues formed outside Sanlu's offices for refunds. The Sanlu website was hackedHacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
several times and its name as displayed in the header bar changed to 三聚氰胺集团 ("The Melamine Group") in a play of words on the character "三" (number 3), which is the first word of Sanlu's Chinese name: 三鹿 (Three Deer); "Melamine" was also added as a product name by a hacker. As has been increasingly common practice, web users vented their anger on internet bulletin boards
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
. Prevalent food scares have increased the number of on-line parodies circulated by netizens. Those inspired by Sanlu have been along themes of passing the buck, stones, or the virtues of not being able to urinate. Celebrities who have endorsed dairy products have also been mocked in photoshopped images.
Before the government began offering free medical treatment, some parents had reportedly spent small fortunes on medical care for their sick children. Children who fell ill before the scandal broke on 12 September were not entitled to free medical care offered by the State. Parents of two such victims, one from Henan and one from Guangdong, filed writs against Sanlu despite government pressure. Parents of the Henan child had claimed ¥150,000 for medical, travel and other expenses incurred after their child developed kidney stones. On 20 October, the parents of one baby who died from contaminated milk appealed to New Zealand for justice on TV ONE. They were quoted as saying the perpetrators of the milk scandal responsible for the death of their child deserved to "die a thousand deaths". A total of nine cases were filed against Sanlu in Shijiazhuang. Following weeks of discussions, and in the absence of a compensation plan, a group of 15 lawyers filed a collective suit on behalf of 100 families against Sanlu, seeking medical and other expenses as well as compensation for trauma and for death of offspring.
Anger at political leaders
There is growing resentment the country's leaders are not troubled by the food security turmoil faced by ordinary citizens: in a speech delivered by Zhu Yonglan (祝詠蘭), Director of the State Council Central Government Offices Special Food Supply Centre (CGOSFSC) in August 2008, Zhu disclosed that her firm which was set up in 2004 to source high-quality, all-organic foodstuffs from farms working under the strictest guidelines, for supply to top political leaders, their families and retired cadres.Premier Wen Jiabao apologised to the nation, saying he felt "extremely guilty" about the poisoned milk products, in the same way he had previously asked the people's pardon for the deaths of coal miners, polluted drinking water, and train passengers stranded by the authorities' inadequate response to the severe snowstorm during the New Year
2008 Chinese winter storms
The 2008 Chinese winter storms（2008年中国雪灾、2008年中国南方雪灾）are a series of winter storm events that affected large portions of southern and central China starting on 25 January 2008 until 6 February 2008. The systems affected most of the area with heavy snows, ice and cold temperatures causing extensive...
.
Author Qin Geng (秦耕) said:"The big picture in this case was the interest of one-party rule above anything, not that they would put the safety of the people first". Qin concluded what the Chinese public were told by the state-controlled media the contamination of milk is a well orchestrated process, and they are "very sad, very frightened and very concerned."
Quest for milk substitutes
Poorer consumers reliant on local milk powder, which is approximately half the price of imported brands, have been left without alternatives to feed their children. Many have now lost faith in local brands, and others are uncertain which brands are safe. Supermarket shelves have been swept bare from product recalls. Shops in Hong Kong have reported a rush for imported formula from cross-border shoppersIndividual Visit Scheme
The Individual Visit Scheme began on July 28, 2003. It allowed travelers from Mainland China to visit Hong Kong and Macau on an individual basis...
, and some retailers are reportedly rationing their stocks. Mainlanders have also been rushing to import milk powder from Kinmen
Kinmen
Kinmen , also known as Quemoy , is a small archipelago of several islands administered by the Republic of China : Greater Kinmen, Lesser Kinmen, and some islets. Administratively, it is Kinmen County of Fujian Province, ROC. The county is claimed by the People's Republic of China as part of its...
. Wet nurse
Wet nurse
A wet nurse is a woman who is used to breast feed and care for another's child. Wet nurses are used when the mother is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cultures the families are linked by a special relationship of...
s are enjoying a resurgence in popularity in major cities. New Zealand media reported Chinese sailors and expatriates have been buying local dairy produce for sending back to relatives in China.
Taiwan
The melamine food scare became a focal point against the warming relations between Taiwan's government
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
and the mainland Chinese government, and a major demonstration was held by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party
Democratic Progressive Party
The Democratic Progressive Party is a political party in Taiwan, and the dominant party in the Pan-Green Coalition. Founded in 1986, DPP is the first meaningful opposition party in Taiwan. It has traditionally been associated with strong advocacy of human rights and a distinct Taiwanese identity,...
on 25 October 2008 to voice dissatisfaction with Taiwan's increasingly closer ties with Beijing, notably related to the incident. Protesters fearful at reunification blamed the Kuomingtang for the melamine scare, and criticised it for failing to stand up to mainland China over the contamination. One citizen voiced concern that President Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou is the 12th term and current President of the Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan, and the Chairman of the Kuomintang Party, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party. He formerly served as Justice Minister from 1993 to 1996, Mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006, and Chairman...
's promise for closer ties with mainland China would bring in more tainted products to Taiwan. The Minister of the Department of Health, Lin Fang-yue, was heavily criticised for raising the legally acceptable limit of melamine in food products from zero to 2.5 ppm. The public outcry subsequent to the move forced Lin to resign. His successor, Yeh Chin-chuan, announced a return to the original zero-tolerance policy to melamine.
Top leaders' comments
AQSIQ announced the revocation of all exemptions from inspection previously granted to dairy producers, who were asked to cease citing the privilege in their advertisements.
Wen Jiabao
Wen Jiabao is the sixth and current Premier and Party secretary of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, serving as China's head of government and leading its cabinet. In his capacity as Premier, Wen is regarded as the leading figure behind China's economic policy...
apologised while visiting victims in hospitals.
President
President of the People's Republic of China
The President of the People's Republic of China is a ceremonial office and a part of State organs under the National People's Congress and it is the head of state of the People's Republic of China . The office was created by the 1982 Constitution...
Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao is the current Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang...
said on 1 October 2008 :"Food safety is directly linked to the well-being of the broad masses and the competence of a company... Chinese companies should learn from the lessons of the Sanlu tainted milk powder incident."
On 6 October 2008, putting the blame on "illegal production and greed", the country's "chaotic dairy production and distribution order", and the "gravely absent supervision" for the crisis, the State Council announced new dairy industry regulations.
On 9 October 2008, in an attempt to control the damage to Chinese dairy exports, officials at a World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
meeting insisted that contamination had been "accidental", directly contradicting the WHO observations. Chinese trade representatives criticised countries which have imposed blanket bans on Chinese food products. They urged member states to base import restrictions on scientific risk assessments, and to use official WTO notification mechanisms. On 11 October, Deputy Health minister Liu Qian
Liu Qian
Liu Quin a character featured within the famed ancient Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods ....
stated that all the foreign companies' application for compensation for dairy products recall would be dealt with on a commercial basis, although government may use diplomatic channels if necessary, if problems were encountered.
Stepped-up inspection program
According to a senior quality inspectorate official, the government aimed to establish nearly 400 product testing centres within the next two years, and 80 of these would be food testing centres. Working groups were established in nearly every single province in order to set up new food testing centres and replace outdated equipment.On 24 September 2008, China's newly appointed AQSIQ chief Wang Yong said that the government would "carry out 'forceful' measures to deal with the chemical contamination"; it's inspectors had removed 7,000 tonnes of melamine contaminated dairy products from shops all over China.
On 4 October, the Ministry of Agriculture announced it had drawn up an emergency rescue plan with the Ministry of Finance to give special subsidies to dairy farmers, seriously affected by the lack of demand following the contamination scandal; local governments had already drafted policies to stabilise the dairy industry; 150,000 officials had been sent to overhaul the entire supply chains from cattle feed to milk-collection; 18,803 milk-collecting stations had been registered and checked by these officials. The ministry was reported to have investigated 98 dairy producers and farms, banned 151 illegal companies and indicted three manufacturers for feed containing melamine. During an investigation into melamine contamination at Yili and Mengniu in Hohhot, police arrested six more people for allegedly selling and mixing melamine into raw milk. The AQSIQ announced on 5 October that all tests showed all milk produced after 14 Sept were free from contamination. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine stated all dairy products made before 14 September will be tested for melamine. They gave notice to all supermarkets, shops, and all city, town and village-level vendors to urgently remove and seal up all milk powder and liquid milk made before 14 September, pending further testing.
The Ministry of Health and five other government agencies issued a joint statement on 9 October, setting the legally acceptable level of melamine content in infant formula at 1 ppm (1 mg/kg), and at 2.5ppm in other dairy products (including milk). The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said that any amount exceeding 1 ppm would give reason to suspect its presence was intentional."
Public relations
On 26 September 2008, in order to quell the disquiet over the speech by Zhu Yonglan of the CGOSFSC regarding leaders' insulation from the food-security issues faced by the general population, Xinhua issued a brief statement, in Chinese, denying the existence of the Centre, the award, or any person named Zhu Yonglan, saying these were "purely rumours".On 16 September, the AQSIQ tests on baby milk powder produced by 109 companies showed 69 batches from 22 companies to be melamine-contaminated; the State Council attempted to reassure that formula produced by most companies in China was safe. It said: "the number of companies with melamine-tainted milk accounted for 20.18% of the total of milk powder companies in China; the number of tainted batches accounted for 14.05% of the total batches tested." On 30 September, the AQSIQ said its tests on 265 batches from 154 companies showed that "only 18%" had tested positive for melamine: "of the 290 dairies nationwide 154 dairies, representing 87% market share, 134 of these dairies had tested negative for melamine."
On 16 September, the AQSIQ published results of tests on 408 liquid milk producers, and found "most dairy products were safe to drink", although the test results showed nearly 10 percent of batches from Mengniu, Yili and Bright were contaminated.
The government stressed that no new cases of melamine-related illnesses had been detected since 20 September, and that test results on samples from 31 brands of baby formula, 84 brands powder for adult consumption, and 75 domestic brands of liquid milk produced after 14 September did not contain melamine, the AQSIQ said. To demonstrate that its emergency measures had been effective, the Ministry of Agriculture said the rate of raw milk dumping because of the contamination scandal has decreased from 23.6% on 22 September to 4.6% on 1 October.
Censorship
Behind the scenes, mainland China's media was ordered to tone down coverage of the unfolding scandal to prevent unrest. News editors were ordered to adhere to the official copy of Xinhua. Traditionally, media knows to avoid negative news coverage, and CCTVChina Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...
shifted reporting emphasis on the forthcoming launch of Shenzhou VII
Shenzhou 7
- Backup crew :Of the back-up crew, only Chen Quan had not previously flown in space.- Mission highlights :The Long March 2F rocket launched the Shenzhou 7 into an initial elliptical orbit of 200 x 330 kilometres inclined at 42.4 degrees on 25 September 2008. About seven hours later the spacecraft...
. The announcement of the AQSIQ test results was relegated to the final item on the CCTV evening news.
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
reported that the suppression of bad news had not improved since the scandal was uncovered: media rigidly adheres to the official line, as ordered; Chinese consumers were ill-informed about the extent of global recalls. It reported local journalists saying that discussion of the causes of the crisis, government responsibility, questions about government complicity with dairy companies, was strictly off limits.
On 2 January, a website created by individuals protesting against Sanlu was also blocked by the authorities. A group of parents whose children were rendered ill by melamine-contaminated milk held a news conference to draw attention to the plight of their sick children; five were allegedly detained by police and taken to a labour camp outside Beijing. They were released a day later.
Pressure on the legal profession
A group of 90 lawyers from Hebei, Henan and Shandong - the three worst affected provinces - had made pro bonoPro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
offers to assist victims, and a list of their names was published. Organisers of the group declared that they had come under pressure from officials to not to get involved in the issue. The Beijing Lawyers' Association, a part of the Communist Party apparatus, asked its members "to put faith in the party and government". Other members of the group have reportedly received less subtle requests. Authorities are said to fear social unrest if law suits were unleashed. Pro-Beijing Hong Kong journal Ta Kung Pao
Ta Kung Pao
Ta Kung Pao is the oldest active Chinese language newspaper in China. It is based in Hong Kong and has been funded by the government of the People's Republic of China since 1949...
reported that central authorities, fearful of the effect of mass law suits, held a meeting with lawyers' groups on 14 September, asking them to "act together, and help maintain stability" 「服從大局，保持穩定」
Chang Boyang, one of the group of volunteer lawyers, said he had filed a suit in Guangdong against Sanlu on behalf of the parents of one victim. One was already filed in Henan. Chang said that Henan's justice department had ordered 14 Henan lawyers to stop helping the kidney stone victims, saying it had become a political issue. He claims he was told by the official to "follow the arrangements set out by the government", and was further threatened: "If this suggestion is disobeyed, the lawyer and the firm will be dealt with." Zhang Yuanxin, lawyer and officer in the Xinjiang Lawyers’ Association said that the actions of certain departments in government have "set back the development of the legal profession". He said that it was "intolerable" for government to interfere in the affairs of the judiciary, denying the right of ordinary citizens to sue.
An official said that central government had issued instructions placing the cases on hold, pending a decision on how to handle the cases in a unified manner. Furthermore, that court was instructed not to give any written replies or accept Sanlu-related cases in the meantime.
Criminal prosecutions
Criminal prosecutions led to two people being executed, another given a suspended death penalty, three others receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms—and 13 others receiving varying sentences.- Zhang Yujun, for producing and selling 776 tons of melamine-laced "protein powder", death.
- Geng Jinping, for adding melamine-laced powder to fresh milk and selling to Sanlu and other companies, death.
- Gao Junjie, making and supplying melamine-laced "protein powder", suspended death sentence.
- Tian Wenhua, former chairwoman of Sanlu Group, life imprisonment.
- Zhang Yanzhang, a middleman, life.
- Xue Jianzhong, owner of an industrial chemical shop, life.
- Wang Yuliang, former executive of Sanlu, 15 years.
- Xiao Yu, helping her husband Gao Junjie, five years.
On the economic root cause
Stratfor believed that the act of adulterating milk and baby food in full knowledge of potentially severe sanctions, including execution, seemed like "an act of desperation." It noted that in 2008 dairy farmers became squeezed by growing costs of livestock, feed, facilities, and government-imposed price caps. Mengniu's share price fell 12% since October 2007 due to higher costs of raw milk (due partly to rising costs of cattle feed) and price controls– anti-inflation measures targeted at the dairy sector announced on 16 January. Milk suppliers accordingly resorted to subtler cost-cutting methods to preserve diminishing profits.On the damage caused
Joseph Sternberg of the Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
said that Beijing's failures of food-safety act are "much more pernicious, and disgraceful, than at first it appears... [not only has this] milk poisoned thousands of infants with melamine, it also poisons the society at large with fear." Lawyer Bill Marler, speaking at a food safety conference in Beijing, said that this food scare has harmed the "made in China
Made in China
Made in China or Made in PRC is a country of origin label affixed to products manufactured in the mainland China, the People's Republic of China , excluding Hong Kong and Macau where all products made in those regions are labeled as "Made in Hong Kong" and "Made in Macau", respectively...
" brand abroad. He remarked: "If this product had gotten into the United States, it would have been 'game over
Game over
Game Over is a message in video games which signals that the game has ended, often due to a negative outcome - although the phrase sometimes follows the end credits after successful completion of a game...
' for a lot of products in China."
An op-ed in the New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
compared this to the "swill milk scandal" in New York in the 1850s in which 8,000 children reportedly died from milk from cows fed swill which was then whitened with plaster of Paris, thickened with starch, eggs and hued with molasses."
The hopeful news in all this is that in the process of creating so much toxicity both the distressed loans and the distressed food are teaching us important lessons about the limits of scale and regulation that support the massive globalisation of the last decade. We are learning that regulators have lost the ability, if they ever had it, to truly monitor the extent of the danger. David E. Gumpert, San Francisco Chronicle |
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
likened the regulatory failures of the milk scandal to the distressed assets in the subprime mortgage crisis
Subprime mortgage crisis
The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was one of the first indicators of the late-2000s financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages....
, and questioned whether regulators in either case ever understood or truly monitored the extent of the danger.
Louis Klarevas, a professor at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's Center for Global Affairs, said of the products on the list of potentially harmful products reaching the US in recent years were exclusive to China: "Yet as more large-scale labor markets compete for their share of international trade, the incentives to cut corners will increase and the temptation to overlook hazardous goods might become a more common occurrence."
On a more positive note Bill Durodié
Bill Durodié
Dr Bill Durodié is an Associate Fellow of the International Security Programme for the prestigious international affairs think-tank, Chatham House, in London...
, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University was established on 1 January 2007. The school came about as an expansion of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies , which was established in 1996.The school is named after the one of modern Singapore's...
in Singapore noted in the 10 November 2008 issue of the Today newspaper there, in response to a question suggesting there may be more such incidents in future due to the more liberal trading relations with China, that: "exposing the Chinese to the world market is probably the fastest way of addressing these issues"
On the power structure
Hu XingdouHu Xingdou
Hu Xingdou is a Chinese economist. He is a Professor of Economics at Beijing Institute of Technology, and is the founder of China Studies as well as various schools and 100 teaching posts and business management to guide the work of graduate students.-Additional source:**-References:...
(胡星斗), a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology
Beijing Institute of Technology
Beijing Institute of Technology , formerly known as 北京工业学院, is a leading public, co-educational, national key university, located in Beijing, China. Established in 1940 in Yan'an , the university used to be administered by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense...
, said: "There hasn't been an effort to establish a moral foundation to the market economy, and this incident is the inevitable result." Hu urged the leadership to transform the way of thinking, to repair the system, rather than dealing with problems as they arise.
The dairy scandal raises the core question of whether the ruling Communist Party
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
is capable of creating a transparent, accountable regulatory structure within a one-party system. Time Magazine cited many analysts saying the party’s need to maintain control of the economy and of information undermines the independence of any regulatory system. One analyst, Willy Lam, a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation
The Jamestown Foundation
The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based institute for research and analysis, founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet dissidents. Today its stated mission is to "inform and educate" policy makers about events and trends, which it regards as being of current "strategic"...
, indicated that CCP's pervasive control over political and economic resources has resulted in the absence of meaningful systematic checks and balances. "Institutions that could provide some oversight over party and government authorities - for example, the legislature, the courts or the media - are tightly controlled by CCP apparatchiks." A Beijing-based consultancy, Dragonomics, concurred that "the problem was rooted in the Communist Party’s continued involvement in pricing control, company management and the flow of information". Independent regulation was lacking or ineffective as local industries' were so intertwined with local officialdom.
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
noted that while one child in 20 in Shanghai may have kidney damage as a result of drinking contaminated formula milk, on the other hand, "like the emperors of old, the new communist elite enjoy the finest produce from all over China, sourced by a high-security government department."
Access Asia, a Shanghai-based consumer consultancy, said Fonterra
Fonterra
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative owned by almost 10,500 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exceeding NZ$19.87 billion, is New Zealand's largest company.- History :In...
was a classic example of western executives in China "believ[ing] advice in business books that they must avoid making their local partners 'lose face' at all costs." It suggested that Fonterra paid a heavy price in write-offs, a wrecked business and public condemnation.
Caijing
Caijing
Caijing is an independent, Beijing-based magazine devoted to information on companies in China. The publication's title means "Finance and Economics Magazine." Caijing's driving mission is to have an "independent standpoint, exclusive coverage and unique perspective."- History :Caijing was...
said the crisis revealed that that there had been a "serious dereliction of duty" at the AQSIQ, and that the government had failed as a "night watchman". Citing public consensus that government should limit itself to a supervisory role, it urged the construction of a regulatory system which addressed the role of regulators watching over the production process, avoiding over-regulation, 'regulatory capture
Regulatory capture
In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as...
' and abuse of power
Abuse of Power
Abuse of Power is a novel written by radio talk show host Michael Savage.- Plot :Jack Hatfield is a hardened former war correspondent who rose to national prominence for his insightful, provocative commentary...
by regulators. "Keeping the market in order and ensuring independent law enforcement should be part of the mandate."
On the culture of secrecy
David Bandurski, journalist and researcher at China Media Project, criticised the crippling media controls by the state combined with "runaway commercial greed", and said that the censorship "suppresses information. critical to the well-being of ordinary Chinese." He asserted that increased press freedom needs to be a component of any strategy to deal with this and other future food-security lapses in China. Free media in China could compensate for the underdeveloped rule of lawRule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
, and be important in keeping companies and regulators honest. Bandurski cited warnings in 9 October 2008 issues of Nanfang Daily
Nanfang Daily
The Southern Daily is the official Guangdong Communist Party newspaper, sister to the more lively and commercial Southern Metropolis Daily and part of the giant Southern Media Group....
and the Information Times for consumers to be aware of that problematic dairy stock (that produced before 14 September) have reappeared in some stores under cover of aggressive promotions.
Former senior party official Bao Tong
Bao Tong
Bao Tong was former Director of the Office of Political Reform of the CPC Central Committee and the Policy Secretary of Zhao Ziyang, Premier of the State Council, from 1980 to 1985. He was also Director of the Drafting Committee for the CCP 13th Party Congresses, known for its strong support for...
said "the more dark secrets are exposed, the better. You can't cure the disease, or save the Chinese people, until you get to the root of the problem." "If the Chinese government tries to play down this incident, there will be no social stability in China, let alone harmony... It will mean that this government has lost the most basic level of trust."
Widening contamination
The search widened when some manufacturers reported not using Chinese milk. The Sri Lankan manufacturer of Munchee Lemon Puff biscuits tested positive in Switzerland categorically stated that its milk powder or milk products were sourced only from Australia, Holland and Canada; similarly, PokkaPokka
is a corporation headquartered in Japan, which sells canned or bottled coffee, flavored tea and an assortment of other beverages.It was known as Singapore's No.1 Jasmine Green Tea.-External links:* * * *...
products without milk or its derivatives from China were found by Vietnamese authorities to be contaminated.
Chicken and eggs
Japanese and South Korean authorities' tests on imported egg powder from China found melamine contamination. Japan found melamine in frozen fried chicken imported from China. The South Korean supplies were traced to two companies in DalianDalian
Dalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning province, Northeast China. It faces Shandong to the south, the Yellow Sea to the east and the Bohai Sea to the west and south. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, Dalian is the southernmost city of Northeast China and China's...
. On 26 October, Hong Kong authorities discovered 4.7ppm melamine in eggs from Dalian. Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health, York Chow, suspected the melamine came from feed given to the chickens that laid the eggs. On 29 October, Hong Kong authorities discovered a third batch of eggs containing excessive melamine. The Taiwanese Department of Health said that six batches of protein powder from Jilin and Dalian were found to contain 1.90 to 5.03ppm of melamine.
Agriculture officials speculated that adulterated feed given to hens could explain melamine in eggs. The Web sites of Xinhua and People's Daily both carried a story from the Nanfang Daily that mixing melamine into animal feed was an "open secret" in the industry: melamine scrap was mixed into an inexpensive "protein powder" resold to feed suppliers. People in the trade interviewed by BusinessWeek also confirmed it was common practice, and had been going on for "years", with most believing it to be non-toxic to animals. Melamine dealers said after Sanlu, the government started clamping down on melamine sales to food processing companies or to manufacturers of animal feed.
Baking powder
Malaysian authorities determined that ammonium bicarbonateAmmonium bicarbonate
Ammonium bicarbonate, a compound with formulaNH4, also called bicarbonate of ammonia, ammonium hydrogen carbonate, hartshorn, AmBic or powdered baking ammonia, is the bicarbonate salt of ammonia....
, not milk, imported from China was the source of contamination at Khong Guan and Khian Guan.
Malaysian authorities said it was probable cross contamination of batches from Chinese companies Broadtech Chemical Int. Co Ltd, Dalian Chemical Industries and Tianjin Red Triangle International Trading Co, and did not suspect adulteration. On 19 October, Taiwanese authorities detected melamine in 469 tons of baking ammonia imported from China. Samples tested showed up to 2,470ppm of melamine.
Animal feed
Impact and response
China's eggs exports in the first eight months of 2008 were valued at USD92.7 million. More than 90% went to Asian countries, and 6.5% went to North America, according to the Ministry of Commerce.International agencies
Jorgen Schlundt, head of food safety at the WHO criticised China's food-safety system for being "disjointed", saying that "poor communications between ministries and agencies may have prolonged the outbreak of melamine poisoning."Chinese public and the trade
Public concerns have resulted in demand and egg prices falling throughout the country. Prices at a large Beijing wholesale market dropped 10%, and prices fell by 10% the day after news of the contamination broke in Hong Kong. Wholesalers have refused stock products without melamine inspection certificates. The Beijing Youth Daily reported that farmers have been forced to slaughter tens of thousands of chickens.In 2008 Zhao Lianhai
Zhao Lianhai
Zhao Lianhai is a Chinese dissident and former food safety worker who became an activist for parents of children harmed during the 2008 Chinese milk scandal. In 2010 he was sentenced to 2½ years imprisonment for 'disturbing social order'....
(赵连海), a Chinese man whose son was sickened by tainted milk earlier that year, started a website called "Home for the Kidney Stone Babies" (结石宝宝之家, jieshibaobao.com), which helped families with children affected by tainted milk share their experiences, in part by maintaining a database of medical records. The website upset Chinese authorities, who detained Zhao in November 2009 and arrested him in December 2009.
PRC government
The Chinese government said that producers violating the law "could have their licenses revoked and be handed over to law enforcement organs". A senior Agriculture Ministry official said that of a quarter of a million feed-makers and animal farms inspected for melamine contamination, inspectors found more than 500 engaged in "illegal or questionable practices". Some 3,700 tonnes of feed with excessive melamine were seized.Hong Kong regulators have requested certification of exported eggs, but the central government has not yet mounted a centralised response; although mainland authorities already require eggs to be certified as free of avian influenza and Sudan red dye prior to export following previous food-safety scares, the AQSIQ has declined nationwide testing. Local government, for example Guangdong authorities, have increased random inspections at poultry farms. They declared to "harshly crack down on the unlawful behaviour of illegally manufacturing, selling and using melamine".
Contamination and response in 2009-2010
On 2 December 2009, China detained three employees of Shaanxi Jinqiao Dairy Company in northwest China suspected of selling 5.25 tons of melamine-laced milk powder to Nanning Yueqian Food Additive Company, in GuangxiGuangxi
Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
. On 30 December 2009, Xinhua reported continuing problems: powder and flavouring products sold by another company involved in the original scandal–the Shanghai Panda Dairy Company–were found to contain illegal levels of melamine; the dairy was closed and three of its executives arrested. On 25 January 2010, it was reported that three food companies from Hebei, Liaoning and Shandong provinces had produced melamine tainted products in March and April 2009 and that the three companies were banned from selling products in Guizhou
Guizhou
' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...
province. On 10 February 2010 China's state council announced a food safety commission, consisting of three vice premiers and a dozen minister-level officials, to address the nation's food regulatory problems. The group aims to improve government coordination and enforcement and to solve systemic food safety problems. As part of its ongoing effort to find and destroy any melamine-tainted milk remaining on the market, the Chinese government announced Monday that it was recalling 170 tons of milk powder laced with the industrial chemical which was supposed to have been destroyed or buried in 2008 but has recently found to have been repackaged and placed back into the marketplace.
In July 2010, Xinhua reported that authorities had seized 64 tonnes of dairy product contaminated with melamine from Dongyuan Dairy Factory, in Minhe County, in Qinghai
Qinghai
Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...
, after authorities in Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
discovered the contaminated milk powder. Approximately 38 tonnes of raw materials had been purchased from Hebei
Hebei
' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...
, raising the possibility that traders had bought tainted milk that was supposed to have been destroyed after the 2008 scandal. Police have detained the owner and production director of the factory. Milk powder produced in the plant was mainly sold in Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
and Jiangsu
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...
, with only a small amount sold in Qinghai. Also, in Jilin
Jilin
Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west...
, authorities were testing samples of suspect milk powder produced in Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang
For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑...
.
At the end of June 2010, Beijing lowered the mainland's minimum protein level for raw milk, from 2.955 to 2.8%, to discourage dairy farmers from attempting to falsify pass protein tests. Wu Heping , secretary general of the Heilongjiang Dairy Industry Association noted that between 75% and 90% of raw milk in some provinces had failed to reach the old protein level standard (in place since 1986) in 2007 and 2008. He said that the new standard reflected "the reality of the domestic dairy farm industry". However, insiders believe this will not stop adulteration because milk price still depends on protein content.
See also
- 2007 pet food recalls2007 pet food recallsThe 2007 pet food recalls comprise the contamination and wide recall of many brands of cat and dog foods beginning in March 2007, and the ensuing developments involving the human food supply. The recalls in North America, Europe, and South Africa came in response to reports of renal failure in pets...
- 2008 Chinese export recalls
- 2009 Chinese lead poisoning scandal2009 Chinese lead poisoning scandalThe 2009 Chinese lead poisoning scandal occurred in the Shaanxi province of China when pollution from a lead plant poisoned children in the surrounding area. Over 850 were affected...
- Chinese protein export contaminationChinese protein export contaminationProtein adulteration in the People's Republic of China refers to the adulteration and contamination of several food and feed ingredients with inexpensive melamine and other compounds such as cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide...
- Official test failures of the 2008 Chinese milk scandalOfficial test failures of the 2008 Chinese milk scandal-Tests conducted by AQSIQ:results published on 16 September 2008Source: China Central Televisionresults published on 30 September 2008Source: Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine...
- Timeline of the 2008 Chinese milk scandalTimeline of the 2008 Chinese milk scandalThis timeline of the 2008 Chinese milk scandal documents how events related to the Chinese dairy products contamination by melamine unfolded. Complaints about kidney problems traced back to a brand of infant formula, subsequent discoveries of melamine contamination of liquid milk, and exported...