Taiwan says melamine found in Nestle milk powders

0 comments

Posted on 2nd October 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , , , , ,

Date: 10/2/2008 4:27 AM

By GILLIAN WONG
Associated Press Writer

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) _ Tests in Taiwan have found minor doses of the industrial chemical melamine in milk powders produced in China by the European food giant Nestle, and those products are being withdrawn, Taiwan’s health minister said Thursday.

The announcement came a day after a dairy at the heart of the tainted milk scandal in China was targeted in a lawsuit by the parents of a toddler who developed kidney stones after drinking infant formula with melamine, an attorney said.

Taiwan Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan said milk powders that Nestle produced in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China were found to contain between 0.3 and 0.85 parts per million of melamine.

“Such minor doses of melamine will not affect people’s health … but we will take them off shelves according to our recommended procedures,” he said.

Liang Chia-jui, a Nestle spokesman in Taipei, said the company will agree to the recall. Nestle has taken out half-page newspaper advertisements to assure Taiwanese consumers of the safety of its milk products over the past two weeks.

Yeh said Taiwan will confer with food safety experts from the United States, Japan, Europe and the World Health Organization to decide on whether to permit milk products containing traces of the chemical.

“We need to have a rational discussion on the matter because it also affects other countries,” he said.

Melamine-contaminated milk has killed four babies and sickened more than 50,000 children in mainland China.

Liang said melamine was never added to any Nestle milk products as an additive, pointing out that food experts maintain that traces of the chemical are widely found in the food chain. He insisted the milk powders produced in Heilongjiang are safe.

Taiwanese authorities have launched a sweeping inspection of milk powders and related products, including instant coffee, milk tea and baked goods. More than 160 products containing Chinese milk and vegetable-based proteins have been removed from stores.

The Chinese milk scare and the economic losses have led to renewed Taiwanese animosity toward rival China. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing still claims the island a part of its territory.

A team of Taiwanese food experts met with their Chinese counterparts in Beijing over the weekend and decided to set up a mechanism to quickly inform the other side about any food safety problems.

The lawsuit filed in China is believed to be the first civil lawsuit filed in response to the contamination of milk, yogurt and other Chinese dairy products with melamine.

Although product liability lawsuits have become more common in recent years, attorney Ji Cheng said he would not know until next week if the court in Henan province would take the case.

“The court will make the decision whether to accept this case after the National Day holiday,” he said.

According to the lawsuit, the boy was fed baby formula made by Sanlu Group Co. from the time of his birth, said the report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine.

The child’s parents, who come from central China’s Henan province, filed a lawsuit in a court in Zhenping county seeking $22,000 in compensation from Sanlu for medical, travel and other expenses incurred after the child developed kidney stones, the magazine said.

The Zhenping court has yet to accept the case.

___

Associated Press Writer Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

More foods getting labeled as US or foreign-grown

0 comments

Posted on 30th September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Date: 9/29/2008 2:34 PM

By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) _ No more wondering where your hamburger came from, or where your lettuce and tomatoes were grown: Starting this week, shoppers will see lots more foods labeled with the country of origin.

It’s a law years in the making but timely, as China’s milk scandal and the recent salmonella-tainted Mexican peppers prompt growing concern over the safety of imported foods.

Still, hold the import-bashing: Numerous outbreaks in recent years have come from U.S.-produced foods, like spinach grown in California.

Until now, shoppers have had little clue where many everyday foods — meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, certain nuts — originate. That’s what the so-called COOL law, for country-of-origin labeling, changes.

Those who want to buy local — or who prefer, say, Chilean grapes and New Zealand lamb — can more easily exercise their purchasing power. Those worried about lax safety regulations in certain countries can avoid those imports. And the next time tomatoes are suspected of food poisoning, consumers may be able to tell investigators they bought only ones grown in a certain region, speeding the probe.

“We do see it as an important step on the road to a more comprehensive system for tracing food items” during outbreaks, says Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“It will be a very good thing because we’ll have a lot more information,” adds Jean Halloran of Consumers Union. But, “you can still be fooled by the COOL label.”

How? There are bunches of exceptions. Fresh strawberries get a label but not chocolate-covered ones. Raw peanuts? Label. Roasted ones? No label. Those popular pre-washed salad mixes? Sometimes.

Here are some common questions as shoppers navigate the change:

Q: What does the new law require?

A: That retailers notify customers of the country of origin — including the U.S. — of raw beef, veal, lamb, pork, chicken, goat, wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish, fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts and whole ginseng. (The aim was big agricultural commodities; ginseng was added for fear of imports masquerading as U.S.-grown.)

Q: Where will I see the country of origin?

A: Anywhere it fits. The rubber band around asparagus; the plastic wrap on ground beef; the little sticker that says “Gala” on an apple. If a food isn’t normally sold in any packaging — such as a bin of fresh green beans or mushrooms — then the store must post a sign.

Q: Aren’t many foods already labeled?

A: Some fresh produce already uses origin labeling as advertising. “Fresh from Florida” or “Jersey Grown” or “Vidalia Onion” tags don’t have to be changed under the new rules; the shopper should realize they’re all U.S. products.

The COOL law mandating such labels first passed in 2002, but lobbying by grocery stores and large meatpackers led Congress to delay the U.S. Department of Agriculture from implementing it. Seafood labeling was phased in first, in 2005 — a key change given recurring safety problems with fish and shellfish from certain countries, including China.

Q: What’s the biggest exception?

A: The labels aren’t for processed foods, meaning no label if the food is cooked, or an ingredient in a bigger dish or otherwise substantially changed. So plain raw chicken must be labeled but not breaded chicken tenders. Raw pork chops are labeled, but not ham or bacon. Fresh or frozen peas get labeled, but not canned peas. Raw shelled pecans, but not a trail mix.

Q: What if the foods are merely mixed together?

A: They’re exempt, too. So cantaloupe slices from Guatemala get labeled. Mix in some Florida watermelon chunks, and no label. Frozen peas, labeled. Frozen peas and carrots, no label. As for bagged salads, USDA considers iceberg and Romaine to be just lettuce, so that bag gets a label. Add some radicchio? No label.

Q: Must all stores comply?

A: No. Meat and seafood sold in butcher shops and fish markets are exempt.

Q: What if companies buy food from various places — beef from both U.S. and Mexican ranchers, for instance?

A: That’s a bone of contention between large U.S. meat producers and smaller ranchers that produce exclusively U.S. animals. Tyson Fresh Meats, for instance, says it’s too expensive to separate which of its cattle came from which country. So in a July letter to customers, Tyson said it would label all beef “Product of the U.S., Canada or Mexico.” The National Farmers Union is protesting; USDA is considering the complaints.

Q: Aren’t country labels on some processed foods?

A: Yes, tariff regulations have long required that a food put into consumer-ready packaging abroad be labeled as an import; that doesn’t apply to bulk ingredients.

Q: When does the change take effect?

A: The law goes into effect Tuesday, although USDA won’t begin fining laggards until spring. Violations can bring a $1,000 penalty.

EDITOR’s NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary

Cadbury pulls melamine-laced chocolate from China

0 comments

Posted on 29th September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , , , ,

By MIN LEE, Associated Press Writer

HONG KONG – British candy maker Cadbury said Monday it is recalling 11 types of Chinese-made chocolates found to contain melamine, as police in northern China raided a network accused of adding the banned chemical to milk.

A Cadbury spokesman said it was too early to say how much of the chemical was in the chocolates made at its Beijing plant.

“It’s too early to say where the source was or the extent of it,” said the spokesman, who declined to be identified because of company policy.

The company said its dairy suppliers were cleared by government testing.

Meanwhile, police in Hebei province arrested 22 people and seized more than 480 pounds of the industrial chemical in the raids, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The report said the melamine was produced in illicit plants and sold to breeding farms and purchasing stations.

Xinhua said 19 of the 22 detainees were managers of pastures, breeding farms and purchasing stations. It did not say when the raids took place.

The scandal broke this month when authorities said infant formula produced by Sanlu was causing kidney stones in babies and young children. Four infants have died and some 54,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated baby formula.

Subsequent tests revealed melamine contamination in products ranging from yogurt to candy to pastries.

Authorities believe suppliers added melamine, which is rich in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to deceive quality tests for protein.

Cadbury said the 11 recalled chocolate products were distributed in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

U.S. companies Kraft Foods Inc. and Mars Inc. said they would adhere to a recall order of Chinese-made Oreos, M&Ms; and Snickers in Indonesia, but said they wanted to conduct their own tests with outside experts.

So far only a local agency has checked the products for melamine, but the levels found were considered very high.

“We have asked our trade partners and retailers to suspend the sales of our products in accordance to the agency’s order,” Mars Indonesia spokesman Bondan Ardi said.

Hong Kong supermarket chain PARKnSHOP also pulled its Chinese-made Oreo, M&M; and Snickers products as a precaution, spokeswoman Pinky Chan said.

Countries around the world have removed items containing Chinese milk ingredients from store shelves or banned them outright.

Authorities in China had previously arrested at least 18 people and detained more than two dozen suspects in connection with the scandal.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press

Baby cereal latest problem in China milk scandal

0 comments

Posted on 27th September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , , ,

BEIJING (AP) — The list of products caught in China’s tainted milk scandal grew Friday to include baby cereal in Hong Kong and snack foods in Japan, while Taiwan reported three children and a mother with kidney stones in the island’s first cases possibly linked to the crisis.

The Japanese government also said it had suspended imports of milk and milk products from China, where some 54,000 children have developed kidney stones or other illnesses after drinking baby formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. Four deaths have been blamed on the tainted milk.

The latest problematic foods were Heinz baby cereal and Silang House steamed potato wasabi crackers. The Hong Kong government said in a statement Friday it found traces of melamine in the products, which were both made in mainland China.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Popular Chinese candy linked to tainted milk

0 comments

Posted on 26th September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , ,

Date: 9/26/2008 4:47 PM

By TINI TRAN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) _ They were Premier Zhou Enlai’s favorite late-night snack. He loved White Rabbit candy so much he gave a bag to President Nixon during his historic visit to China. But the iconic brand, beloved by generations of Chinese, took a hit after it was linked to the tainted milk scandal.

The Shanghai-based maker of the candy said Friday it had halted production because of suspected melamine contamination. The chewy vanilla-flavored White Rabbit sweets have already been pulled from shelves around Asia and in Britain.

The Guan Sheng Yuan Co. was still waiting for test results on samples of its exported products, but all sales have been stopped as a precaution, said Ge Junjie, a vice president of Bright Foods (Group) Co. Ltd., which owns the Shanghai maker.

“It’s a tragedy for the Chinese food industry and a big lesson for us as it ruined the time-honored brand,” Ge was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Daily.

The popular sweets are sold in more than 50 countries throughout Asia and the world, including most of the Chinatowns in the United States. Overseas sales have reached $160 million over the past five years.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended Friday that consumers not eat White Rabbit candy and that retailers remove it from sale. The agency also recommended avoiding Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products being recalled by Taiwan’s Car Food Industrial Co. Ltd., though it said it was not aware of any illnesses in the United States linked to either the candy or the coffee and tea products.

Tests in Singapore and New Zealand this week found White Rabbit sweets were tainted with melamine, the industrial chemical that has already been found in milk and other dairy products in China. Used in making plastic and fertilizer, it has been blamed for causing kidney problems in infants and young children, sickening some 54,000 and killing four babies. About 13,000 remain hospitalized.

The widening scandal has dealt a huge blow to China’s leading candy maker, which has been producing the hugely popular sweets for about a half-century.

“White Rabbit is a famous brand, with huge brand assets. It’s almost an icon and carries lots of memories. Imagine if the same thing happened to Coca-Cola,” said Kara Chan, a professor in the communication studies department at Hong Kong Baptist University who studies branding.

White Rabbit was first produced in 1959, “in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China,” according to the company Web site.

Its historic pedigree got an even bigger boost in 1972 when the Chinese premier gave the candy, along with two pandas, as a state gift for the visiting President Nixon as a sign of friendship.

Virtually all Chinese have fond memories of the sticky, taffy-like confection wrapped in edible rice paper. With its distinctive red, white, and blue packaging and wide-eyed namesake, White Rabbit candies are ubiquitous, routinely offered up in homes throughout China.

“When we were in school, all my classmates liked White Rabbit,” said Su Yan, a 19-year-old sales clerk. “Girls would ask their boyfriends to buy it for them and the candy would be served on occasions like holiday receptions, a graduation party and wedding ceremonies.”

Retailer Carrefour and supermarket chain Jingkelong in Beijing said their stores have pulled the candy off their shelves, but other grocers, including one in the popular Silk Market, still stocked it on Friday.

Tea stall owner Yuan Yaqi, a self-described White Rabbit fan, had a 5-pound bag open beside her as she waited for customers Friday.

“I loved White Rabbit when I was a child, because I liked milk products,” she said. “I remember at every Spring Festival, my parents prepared a big dish mixed with melon seeds, peanuts and candies to be served to visiting friends. I often picked out the White Rabbits and hid them somewhere for myself.”

Yuan said she had not heard about the melamine contamination ban, but said: “If White Rabbit was gone forever, I would feel very sad.”

It’s not the first time White Rabbit has faced allegations of contamination. Last year, it was at the heart of another controversy, with the Philippines government claiming the candy contained formaldehyde and demanding a recall. The company blamed counterfeit candy for the problem.

Concern about White Rabbit candy has spread as far away as South America, where health authorities in Suriname ordered stores to stop selling it as a precautionary measure. The candy is widely available in Suriname, where people of Chinese heritage make up roughly 8 percent of the population.

In Peru, White Rabbit candy was among five milk-based Chinese products banned for import or sale by the health ministry.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

China dairy brand won't survive tainted formula

0 comments

Posted on 24th September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , , , ,

Date: 9/23/2008 11:59 PM

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) _ China’s Sanlu milk brand — the company at the center of China’s tainted baby formula scandal — won’t recover from the damage it has suffered, its New Zealand partner said Wednesday as it slashed the value of its holding in the company.

Tens of thousands of Chinese children have sought medical care, nearly 13,000 have been hospitalized and four infants have died because of Chinese-made infant formula contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine.

The Chinese government has now taken control of Sanlu Group Co., 43 percent owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative, and shut down its operations, Fonterra Chief Executive Andrew Ferrier said at a briefing.

Told that Chinese authorities had now reported Sanlu received complaints about its infant formula as early as December 2007 but failed to alert authorities until Aug. 2, Ferrier said, “If these allegations prove to be true, then I’m appalled.”

“Sanlu has been damaged very badly by this tragedy,” he told reporters as he announced Fonterra’s annual results.

“The (Sanlu) brand cannot be reconstructed,” Ferrier said, adding he “can’t see clearly at this point” whether Sanlu group “will stay intact.”

He noted melamine contamination “is in dairy products across the whole country,” with 22 Chinese companies caught up in the scandal.

If it was true that local Chinese officials didn’t report the contamination to the central government until Sept. 9 as Beijing now claims, “then I am shocked,” he said.

“We were under the belief that people were aware at all levels” by early August, he said, adding, “It could have been that people were fooling us … at the local authority level.

He said he would not speculate when asked whether there had been a cover-up of the scandal because the Olympic Games were about to start in Beijing at the time the contamination was first reported by Sanlu on Aug. 2.

Ferrier again insisted that Fonterra “pressed” for an immediate public recall of Sanlu infant formula from that time — a step only taken on Sept. 9 after the New Zealand government alerted Beijing authorities to the poisoned formula.

“We pushed as hard as we could in the system,” he said Wednesday.

Fonterra, which trades dairy products in 140 countries, would now introduce “more comprehensive testing for every conceivable poison … round the world” in milk it purchases, he said, adding, “You can never be 100 percent absolutely certain against a criminal contamination of your supply chain.”

Ferrier said “we don’t know” when asked if Fonterra retains confidence in Sanlu’s board and management.

“You can bet Fonterra is gun shy about this whole thing and we need to get to the bottom of it,” Ferrier said. “There will be material changes to management and governance of this investment.”

While Sanlu had been profitable in 2007 and 2008, Ferrier said Fonterra had slashed the value of its investment in the Chinese dairy group by US$139 million to an estimated US$62 million.

Fonterra has poured nearly US$200 million into the joint venture since buying a 43 percent stake in December 2005.

Company Chairman Henry van der Heyden said the melamine contamination “is a criminal event,” but added his board was unanimous that Fonterra remain “committed to China.”

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

China's product safety watchdog steps down

0 comments

Posted on 23rd September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

, , , , , , , , ,

Date: 9/22/2008 5:06 PM

By TINI TRAN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) _ The head of China’s food safety watchdog resigned Monday for failing to stop the widespread contamination of baby formula as the number of children sickened in the scandal soared to nearly 53,000, including four infants who died.

The shake-up came as investigators revealed that China’s biggest producer of powdered milk, Sanlu Group Co., had received complaints as early as December 2007 linking its infant formula to illnesses in babies. Months later, tests revealed the milk was tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which causes kidney stones and can lead to kidney failure.

“During these eight months, the company did not inform the government and did not take proper measures, therefore making the situation worse,” China Central Television reported, citing an investigation by the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

Melamine, used to make plastics and fertilizer, has been found in infant formula and other milk products from 22 of China’s dairy companies. Suppliers trying to cut costs are believed to have added it to watered-down milk because its high nitrogen content masks the resulting protein deficiency.

The number of sick children reported by the Health Ministry has jumped from 6,200 to nearly 53,000. Of those, 12,892 remain hospitalized, with 104 of them in serious condition. Another 39,965 children have been treated and released.

The ministry did not explain the sudden increase in the number of cases but it suggested health officials were combing through hospital records from May through August to trace the origins of the contamination.

Baby formula and other milk products have been pulled from stores around the country and Chinese dairy products, including baby formula, milk candy and ice cream, have been recalled or banned in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Hong Kong.

In a reflection of the breakdown in supervision of the dairy industry, Sanlu and several other leading companies embroiled in the scandal had been given inspection-free status by the food safety watchdog.

That privilege has since been rescinded, but the World Health Organization stressed Monday it was only a first step and urged closer monitoring.

Quality issues can crop up at any point in the supply chain, from the farm to the retail outlet, said WHO China representative Hans Troedsson, adding: “It’s clearly something that is not acceptable and needs to be rectified and corrected.”

The resignation of Li Changjiang, who headed the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine since 2001, comes a year after he and the government promised to overhaul the system in response to a series of product safety scares.

New regulations and procedures were introduced in an attempt to restore consumer confidence and preserve export markets after a string of recalls involving tainted toothpaste, faulty tires, contaminated seafood and in March 2007, pet food containing melamine that was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States.

A series of improvements were announced from establishing a national food recall system to random inspections to increasing exchanges with quality inspectors in other countries.

In an indication of Beijing’s determination to improve product safety, the government in July 2007 executed the disgraced chief of China’s food and drug agency, who was convicted of accepting bribes in exchange for letting fake medicine into the domestic market.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Li stepped down with the approval of China’s Cabinet.

The agency “failed to conduct a proper inspection in this case, and Li Changjiang bears responsibility for this. The State Council has accepted his resignation,” China Central Television reported.

In addition, the top official from Shijiazhuang, where Sanlu is based, was fired Monday for “failing to deal with the case properly,” the official Xinhua News Agency said. Party secretary Wu Xianguo is the latest in a string of city officials who have been sacked over the scandal.

The discovery of the tainted milk is especially damaging because Sanlu was considered one of the most reputable brands in China, winning an industry award in January and being featured on state television last fall as a domestic company with stringent quality controls.

WHO was having discussions with Chinese officials on how to strengthen its food quality system, said Troedsson, its country representative. Local authorities need increased training to create a “more robust reporting system,” he said.

“It is important to know if information was withheld, where and why it was withheld,” he said. “Was it ignorance by provincial authorities or was it that they neglected to report it? 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.”

___

Associated Press reporters Anita Chang and Henry Sanderson contributed to this story.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Newer Entries »