China investigating kidney ailments in babies

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Posted on 19th February 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 2/19/2009

By AUDRA ANG
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese health officials are investigating a growing number of cases of kidney stones in babies, state media said Thursday, months after a tainted milk scandal in which hundreds of thousands of children who drank melamine-contaminated formula suffered similar ailments.

While the Health Ministry has not directly linked the new cases to dairy products, parents are blaming formula made by Dumex Baby Food Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of France’s Groupe Danone SA. Dumex insists that its products are safe, and health officials said tests showed they are free of melamine, an industrial chemical.

The China Daily newspaper said Thursday that the Health Ministry has asked all local health bureaus to begin epidemiological research on kidney problems in children, including checking their eating habits and living environment.

“We’re trying to find out why the number of kidney ailments among babies has risen drastically,” Ma Yangchen of the ministry’s press office was quoted as saying. The report did not say how many children have become sick, when they became ill or what triggered the investigation.

A woman who answered the telephone at the Health Ministry said there was no official statement on the matter.

The ministry’s investigation reflects government efforts to restore public confidence after milk tainted with melamine, used in the production of plastics and fertilizer, was linked to the deaths last year of at least six Chinese babies and illnesses of nearly 300,000 others.

The scandal, which unfolded in September, was one of the country’s worst food contamination crises. It involved the products of China’s biggest dairies and underscored the government’s problems with policing product quality.

State media have said that officials started looking into Dumex because of overseas media reports last month that about 48 Chinese babies suffered kidney-related illnesses after drinking the company’s milk. It did not identify the reports.

Dumex has insisted that all its products are safe. The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision said over the weekend it had tested 932 batches of dairy products produced by the Danone subsidiary since mid-September “and all are melamine-free.”

It also said no melamine was found in more than 1,700 batches produced before mid-September, when the dairy scandal broke.

Dumex’s main China office in Shanghai had no immediate comment Thursday.

Jiang Yalin, a mother in the southwestern province of Guizhou and the leader of a parents’ group, said her daughter drank only Dumex milk after she turned 1 and fell sick about two months later. She cried constantly at night, even in her sleep, and started having problems urinating, Jiang said.

When Jiang took her daughter to the hospital in September after reading about the tainted milk scandal, doctors said the child had stones as big as rice grains in both her kidneys.

“I was stunned. I felt helpless and angry,” Jiang said in a telephone interview.

The girl has since recovered and Jiang says doctors have declared her healthy.

Jiang said she has compiled a list of more than 100 babies — the youngest only a couple of months old — who fell sick after drinking Dumex and may file a suit against the company.

“I must figure out what exactly it was that harmed my daughter. I must know,” Jiang said.

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Associated Press researcher Xi Yue contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

China's product safety watchdog steps down

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Posted on 23rd September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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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.”

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

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.