Tainted Milk

SHIJIAZHUANG, China - China's latest tainted product crisis has spread to its liquid milk industry, the country's quality watchdog said Friday.

The crisis has already roiled the dairy industry, with widespread recalls after the industrial chemical melamine was found in milk powder. It has been linked to four infant deaths and illnesses in 6,200 others.

Officials had said liquid milk was safe, but on Friday the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said milk sold in liquid form by three leading Chinese dairies has also been found to be contaminated with melamine.

A report posted on the agency's Web site said test results show nearly 10 percent of samples taken from Mengniu Dairy Group Co. and Yili Industrial Group Co. — China's two largest dairy companies — contained up to 8.4 milligrams of melamine per kilogram. Milk from Shanghai-based Bright Dairy also shows melamine contamination.

"AQSIQ will strictly find out the reason for adding the melamine and severely punish those who are responsible," the notice said. It said all the batches that tested positive were being recalled.

The scandal has shocked parents, with hundreds converging on the company at the heart of a tainted baby formula scandal, demanding refunds and asking what they can safely feed their children.

Thousands of others filled hospitals, many hovering over sons and daughters hooked to IV drips after drinking milk powder tainted with melamine, a toxic industrial chemical that can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure.

The scandal highlights the changing family dynamics and economic growth in China. A generation ago, women had little choice besides breast-feeding. Now, supermarkets are filled with dozens of brands of baby formula, marketed to women who work outside the home after they give birth.

Yao Haoge, an 11-month-old baby with two large kidney stones, had been drinking formula produced by Sanlu group Co., the company at the heart of the scandal, since she was born because both of her parents work. They had been puzzled by their little girl's fevers and dark urine, but it never occurred to them that she had kidney stones brought on by her formula.

Now, like many of the babies at the Peace Hospital in Shijiazhuang, Haoge has an IV drip hooked into a vein in her head.

"We don't make much money, but we wanted to buy good milk powder," said her father, Yao Weiguan, a day-laborer from a small town an hour's train ride from Shijiazhuang.

"We thought it was good and now it's given us problems."

Baby milk powder laced with melamine, used in plastics and fertilizers, has been blamed in the deaths of four babies. More than 6,200 others have been sickened. Some 1,300 babies, mostly newborns, remain hospitalized, with 158 suffering from acute kidney failure.

Questions continued to swirl about the handling of the scandal by milk producer Sanlu and government officials.

The company reportedly received complaints about its formula as early as March and tests revealed the contamination by early August, just before the Olympics. Sanlu went public with a recall on Sept. 11 after its New Zealand stakeholder told the New Zealand government, which then informed the Chinese government.

Melamine has no nutritional value but is high in nitrogen, making products with it appear higher in protein. Suppliers trying to cut costs are believed to have added the toxic chemical to watered-down milk to cover up the resulting protein deficiency.

The scandal has not been confined to Sanlu, one of China's best-known and most respected brands, based in this dusty northern Chinese city. The country's quality control watchdog has found that one-fifth of companies producing milk powder in China had melamine in their products.

At a nearby Sanlu processing facility, hundreds of people waited for refunds. Some held a half-empty pouch, while others hauled in cases of the formula. A red banner at the plant declared: "Pay attention to food safety, ensure the public's health."

Police in northern China's Hebei province, where Sanlu is based, arrested 12 more people Thursday, bringing the total to 18. Police said six suspects allegedly sold melamine, while the others were accused of adding the chemical to milk.

The widening crisis has raised questions about the effectiveness of tighter controls China promised after a series of food safety scares in recent years over contaminated seafood, toothpaste and a pet food ingredient tainted with melamine. In 2004, more than 200 Chinese infants suffered malnutrition and at least 12 died after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients.