China's milk victims complain of intimidation

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Posted on 17th March 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 3/17/2009

By ANITA CHANG
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) — Families whose children fell ill from tainted milk have come under pressure to drop compensation lawsuits, victims’ advocates said Tuesday, showing the government’s lingering uneasiness over one of China’s worst contamination scandals.

Local officials were calling and visiting at least a half-dozen families, urging them to drop their cases against the dairies and accept a government-sanctioned compensation plan giving 2,000 yuan ($290) to most victims, said Zhao Lianhai, the father of a child sickened by the milk.

At least one family has decided to back out of their lawsuit, said Zhao, who has rallied other families through a Web site he created.

“One parent told me, ‘I’m more than 30 years old but I’ve never before seen the county and village officials. Everyone in the family is really scared,’” said Lu Jun, an AIDS activist who has been working with families of tainted milk victims in central China’s Henan province.

Infant formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine was blamed for killing at least six babies and sickening nearly 300,000 across China in the scandal that began in September.

Unscrupulous middlemen are accused of adding melamine, which is high in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to fool quality tests for protein content. When ingested, melamine can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

The scandal rocked the country, culminating in a law enacted in recent weeks that consolidates hundreds of disparate regulations covering the country’s 500,000 food processing companies.

The accusations that local officials are trying to intimidate victim’s families come despite this month’s announcement by the executive vice president of China’s highest court, Shen Deyong, that parents who rejected the government’s compensation plan were welcome to file lawsuits against the dairies.

It was not clear why local officials would try to stop the families after Shen’s announcement. But different levels of government in China often disagree on how to handle matters, and local officials may see lawsuits as a threat to their authority with the potential to upset stability in their community.

More than 600 families have demanded higher compensation than the government plan offers — one-time payouts using money from dairies named in the scandal. Families that take the money can’t sue for more unless they can prove they were forced to agree to the compensation plan, lawyers have said.

Wang Zhenping, whose 1 1/2-year-old son became ill after drinking contaminated infant formula, said he has received four phone calls from health bureau officials in Henan’s Zhoukou city in the last two weeks. They also have visited his mother’s house twice.

“The last time they called me, I told them to call my lawyer,” he said, planning to continue his legal fight against Sanlu, the dairy at the center of the crisis.

Phones at the Zhoukou city health bureau rang unanswered Tuesday.

Lawyers representing the victims’ families have also run into obstacles in recent days.

Li Jinglin, an attorney who was representing parents of children sickened by Shengyuan brand infant formula, said the Beijing city justice bureau called his law firm last Friday and told his superiors he should not be working on the case. Li said he withdrew from the case but hoped another lawyer could take his spot.

A coalition of lawyers working to sue the 22 dairies named in the scandal is focused primarily on getting at least one case involving the key dairy Sanlu to be accepted by a court in the northern city of Shijiazhuang.

“We just want the courts to accept at least one case as an example,” lawyer Lin Zheng said.

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Associated Press researcher Xi Yue in Beijing contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Trials open for 9 over China tainted milk scandal

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Posted on 29th December 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 12/29/2008

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) — Nine people went on trial Monday in connection with China’s tainted milk scandal, state media reported, following the announcement of steps to compensate the families of hundreds of thousands of children harmed by contaminated infant formula.

The tainted formula gave babies painful kidney stones and news of the problem sent parents around the country rushing their babies to emergency rooms for tests to see if they were affected. Chinese dairy exports such as chocolate and yogurt were also found to be tainted, triggering a slew of product recalls elsewhere in Asia and in Europe, Africa and Latin America.

At least four of the suspects on trial Monday could be given the death penalty.

Hearings were held in the northern city of Shijiazhuang, where the company at the heart of the scandal — Sanlu Group Co. — is headquartered, along with three other cities in surrounding Hebei province, according to state broadcaster CCTV and the Xinhua News Agency.

The first trials in the case began for six men on Friday.

All 15 on trial have been charged with producing and selling melamine. The industrial chemical was added to raw milk because — like protein — it is high in nitrogen and can make protein levels appear higher.

Sanlu’s chairwoman and general manager, Tian Wenhua, is scheduled to go before a Shijiazhuang court Wednesday.

At least six babies died and 294,000 other children suffered kidney and urinary problems from drinking the baby formula made from the contaminated milk.

The four suspects in the Shijiazhuang trial are accused of endangering public safety and could face sentences ranging from 10 years in prison to the death penalty. It identified them as Gao Junjie, his wife Xiao Yu, Xue Jianzhong, and Zhang Yanjun.

The four are accused of having produced 200 tons of a mixture of melamine and malt dextrin, a food additive made from starch, that they marketed to milk producers, according to the reports.

Between November 2007 and August 2008, they sold 110 tons to milk producers — including Sanlu — for a total of 1.23 million yuan ($180,000), the reports said.

Although melamine, a common industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer, is legal to produce and sell in China, CCTV said the court believed the men’s actions had “greatly harmed the health and safety of the consumers, especially infants, therefore violating the criminal law of China.”

It was unclear if CCTV was quoting the court. Calls to the Intermediate People’s Court went unanswered.

Xinhua said the other five are charged with producing and selling poisonous food, but did not give their names or other details.

The trials come amid moves by authorities to end a national disgrace that highlighted widespread problems with food safety and corporate and governmental malfeasance.

On Saturday, China’s Dairy Industry Association said 22 dairy producers would make a one-time cash payment to families of victims and establish a fund to cover medical bills for future health problems.

Lawyers — who are seeking to bring a lawsuit against the companies involved — say they understand most children who suffered kidney stones from the tainted milk would get 2,000 yuan ($290), while sicker children would be paid 30,000 yuan ($4,380).

Chinese courts have rejected all claims filed by the victims’ families, including a lawsuit filed this month by lawyers representing 63 defendants that sought nearly 14 million yuan ($2 million) in compensation from Sanlu.

The state-owned company has been declared bankrupt according to New Zealand’s Fonterra Group, which owns a 43 percent stake in Sanlu.

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Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Deaths in China milk scandal go uncounted

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Posted on 17th November 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 11/16/2008

By CHARLES HUTZLER
Associated Press Writer

LITI VILLAGE, China (AP) _ Li Xiaokai died of kidney failure on the old wooden bed in the family farmhouse, just before dawn on a drizzly Sept. 10.

Her grandmother wrapped the 9-month-old in a wool blanket. Her father handed the body to village men for burial by a muddy creek. The doctors and family never knew why she got sick. A day later, state media reported that the type of infant formula she drank had been adulterated with an industrial chemical.

Yet the deaths of Xiaokai and at least four other babies are not included in China’s official death toll from its worst food safety scare in years. The Health Ministry’s count stands at only three deaths.

The stories of these uncounted babies suggest that China’s tainted milk scandal has exacted a higher human toll than the government has so far acknowledged. Without an official verdict on the deaths, families worry they will be unable to bring lawsuits and refused compensation.

So far, nobody is suggesting large numbers of deaths are being concealed. But so many months passed before the scandal was exposed that it’s likely more babies fell sick or died than official figures reflect.

Beijing’s apparent reluctance to admit a higher toll is reinforcing perceptions that the authoritarian government cares more about tamping down criticism than helping families. Lawyers, doctors and reporters have said privately that authorities pressured them to not play up the human cost or efforts to get compensation from the government or Sanlu, the formula maker.

“It’s hard to say how the government will handle this matter,” said Zhang Xinkui, a Beijing-based lawyer amassing evidence of the contamination for a possible lawsuit. “There may be many children who perhaps died from drinking Sanlu powdered milk or perhaps from a different cause. But there’s no system in place to find out.”

In the weeks since Xiaokai’s death, her father and his older brother have talked to lawyers and beseeched health officials, with no result.

“My heart is in pain,” said her father, Li Xiaoquan, a short, taciturn farmer with hooded eyes. From a corner of his farmhouse courtyard in central China’s wheat and corn flatlands, he pulls a worn green box that once held apples and is now stuffed with empty pink wrappers of the Sanlu Infant Formula Milk Powder that Xiaokai nursed on. “We think someone, the company, should compensate us.”

In coal-mining country 450 miles (725 kilometers) to the northwest, Tian Xiaowei waits for his wife to leave their newly built house before removing five small photos of a wide-eyed baby boy from a brown plastic document folder. “She breaks down when she sees them,” Tian said. The photos are the only mementos left of year-old Tian Jin, who died in August.

“I want these people who poisoned the milk powder to receive the severest punishment under law. I want an explanation and I want consolation for my dead child,” said Tian, a broad-shouldered apple farmer and part-time truck driver. “I feel like we could die from regret. If we knew that it was contaminated, we would never have fed him that.”

Since September, when the scandal was first reported, Beijing has said that Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co., the dairy, knew as early as last year that its products were tainted with melamine and that company and local officials first tried to cover it up.

The government has promised free medical treatment to the 50,000 children sickened, and unspecified compensation to them and families of the dead. The Health Ministry, which is coordinating the government’s response, declined to answer questions about the compensation plan and whether it was investigating deaths and illnesses not yet counted by the government.

Melamine, a chemical used as a flame retardant and binding agent to make cooking utensils and industrial coatings, is rich in nitrogen. As such, it makes an attractive low-cost additive to milk and other foods; nitrogen registers as protein on many routine tests.

Though melamine is not believed harmful in tiny amounts, higher concentrations produce kidney stones, which can block the ducts that carry urine from the body, and in serious cases can cause kidney failure.

All eight babies who died were diagnosed with kidney failure, according to the families, medical records or state media accounts. All also supposedly drank Sanlu infant formula or powdered milk.

The fathers of Li Xiaokai and Tian Jin both wave inch-thick sheaves of medical reports and tests from their children’s stays in hospitals. Xiaokai, a twin older than her sister Xiaoyan by three minutes, was fed with Sanlu formula while the younger girl nursed on breast milk because their mother did not have enough for both, family members said.

An ultrasound examination of Xiaokai’s kidneys at the Zhengzhou Children’s Hospital on Aug. 21 found a stone in each kidney that was about the size of a small marble and 2½ times larger than what doctors consider a critical threshold.

Tian Xiaowei, the apple farmer, sent bags of Sanlu infant formula to a government laboratory in September. The Xi’an Product Quality Supervision Institute’s report, dated Oct. 8, found melamine levels of 1,748 milligrams per kilogram, more than 800 times the government-set limit.

Then there’s Wang Siyu, the daughter of an accountant and proprietor of an Internet cafe in the central city of Shangqiu. Siyu was fed Sanlu products from birth and developed recurring kidney problems in May last year, at age 3, said her mother, Li Songmei.

Twice hospitalized, she was taken off Sanlu milk and started to recover, only to fall ill again when the family began to give her Sanlu products, Li said. Sick for a third time and swollen, she died of kidney failure at the Zhengzhou Children’s Hospital on May 2, said Li.

“Ever since she was born, she had been using Sanlu milk. Only when she felt sick and couldn’t eat did she stop taking Sanlu,” said Li.

Others among the five include an infant in far western Xinjiang province, whose story was posted on the provincial government Web site, and a 6-month-old boy in southeastern Jiangxi province, reported by the New Legal Daily. A reporter who worked on the article and would give only his surname, Liu, said the newspaper was careful not to blame Cai Cong’s death on Sanlu formula because “the local government has not yet reached a verdict.”

Medical experts say kidney stones in infants are rare. Doctors in several parts of China first noticed a rise in cases in the past two years. Pediatric urologist Feng Dongchuan tried to sound an alarm, posting an item on his blog in July about a spike in cases at his hospital in the central city of Xuzhou and in nearby Nanjing city. Feng pinpointed infant formula as the likely cause.

Feng at first refused requests for interviews, then responded in a terse e-mail: “The chance for infants or small children to come down with kidney stones is very small, and having stones that obstruct both kidneys is even more rare.”

Like the others, the Li family grew distressed when Xiaokai started to become fussy in July. With their two-acre (8,000-square-meter) farm in Liti Village, her parents never had much money and already had a child, a son. But they wanted a larger family, bucking the one-child family planning limits. Xiaokai was “the more active” of the twins, said her 70-year-old grandmother, Li Xuan.

By August, Xiaokai was running a high fever, unabated by ever higher doses of medicine. Alarmed after she stopped eating and urinating, the family took her to the nearby Runnan county hospital on Aug. 18. The doctors diagnosed kidney failure and rushed her overnight by ambulance to Zhengzhou Children’s Hospital, three hours away and the best in Henan province.

“They knew right away,” said the father, Li. Xiaokai was run thr
ough tests and put on intravenous solutions to try to shrink the kidney stones. Unable to stay with her or afford a hotel, Li and his mother slept on the pavement outside the hospital. After five days, the hospital said it could do no more.

“The doctors wouldn’t operate because they said ‘she’s too small,’” said Li. They suggested taking Xiaokai to Beijing or Shanghai. Hospital officials declined comment and refused to make Xiaokai’s doctor available.

The hospital stay in Zhengzhou cost 7,331 yuan, or $1,070 — about a year’s cash income for the family — and they had already borrowed money to pay for Xiaokai’s care.

So Li brought Xiaokai home to die. They took her to a traditional medicine doctor in the village, who gave her an herbal medicine and confirmed the grim prognosis. “The old doctor told us ‘the child will die in 10 to 18 days,’” Li said.

Early on Sept. 10 while it was still dark, the grandmother called Li into the side room where she and Xiaokai slept. “Her stomach was puffy” — a sign of kidney failure — “and she wasn’t breathing,” he said.

In many parts of north China, the death of a child is considered a misfortune that can bring bad luck on a family and is best suppressed. Accordingly, Li Haiqin, a cousin, and three other men took Xiaokai to a creek on the far side of the village fields. They put a brick in the blanket with the body and placed it in a shallow hole under a path between rows of poplar trees. Then they walked back in silence beneath a gray dawn and a light rain. No close family members were there and none was told where the grave is.

Xiaokai’s family says Beijing had waived regular inspections of Sanlu because its quality controls were said to be excellent. “The government should shoulder its responsibility. This was a national brand, inspection-exempt products,” said Xiaokai’s uncle, Li Shenyi.

Since the death, Li Shenyi approached the Runnan county Health Bureau to classify Xiaokai’s death as caused by tainted formula. “They said the upper levels (of government) were working on it,” he said.

The county health bureau referred calls to its supervisors in Zhumadian city, who said ultimately it was up to Beijing.

“Right now, the Health Ministry has no clear explanation on how the victim’s families should be compensated,” said a Ms. Shang at the Zhumadian Health Bureau’s medical affairs office. “Nobody knows.”

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

China dairy sued over infant's toxic milk death

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Posted on 13th October 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 10/13/2008 6:12 AM

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) _ The family of a baby whose death has been blamed on toxic milk filed suit against one of China’s largest dairies Monday, while another dairy ensnared in the scandal said it was a victim of unscrupulous subcontractors.

The lawsuit against Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co. was filed over the May 1 death of 6-month-old Yi Kaixuan in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, the family’s lawyer said.

It is the first to be filed over a child who died from drinking the tainted milk and asks for almost $160,000 in damages.

Milk collection stations and individual farmers are accused of watering down milk to increase volume, then adding the industrial chemical melamine to increase protein levels. Melamine, used mainly in plastics and fertilizer, is high in nitrogen and can make milk appear to contain more protein, which is what quality tests measure.

The practice has been blamed for causing the deaths of four infants and sickening 54,000 others, with 10,000 still hospitalized.

Speaking on a television talk show late Sunday, the president of Bright Dairy said his company, one of the largest in the Chinese dairy industry, had been “too nice” toward milk collection stations that bought milk from farmers.

Large dairy companies typically buy raw milk gathered from small farmers at milking stations and collection centers, often by subcontractors responsible for safety testing. Safeguards were often lax and major milk producers have been criticized for not carrying out adequate testing.

The comments appeared aimed at restoring consumer confidence in the wake of the scandal that has dinged the reputation of some of China’s best-known food companies.

“We thought they were operating in good conscience,” Guo Benheng said on state television’s economics channel.

“I’d say we made an innocent mistake, although an innocent mistake is still a mistake. We are definitely making corrections,” Guo said, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on official Web sites Monday.

Appearing on the same show, the vice president of Mengniu Dairy, one of the country’s largest, said the scandal had affected the company profoundly.

“This sort of thing just tears your heart apart,” Zhao Yuanhua said.

The Yi family’s lawyer, Dong Junming, said he turned the lawsuit in at Lanzhou’s No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court where clerks told him they would notify him Tuesday as to whether it would be accepted.

At least two other lawsuits have been filed against Sanlu — the company at the center of the uproar — in recent weeks by parents of children suffering from kidney stones. It is not clear if courts will allow these suits to progress.

Product liability lawsuits are still relatively rare in China, and lawyers have complained of government pressure to withdraw from the cases.

Chinese milk powder and other food products have been banned from more than a dozen countries, worsening an increasingly painful downturn in China’s crucial export sector and threatening household incomes in the vast, mostly poor countryside.

The scandal has struck a blow to China’s efforts to build global brand names and establish healthy business practices.

Newspapers on Monday reported Chinese beverage-maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group was considering buying dairy assets from Sanlu Group, the milk-maker accused of attempting to cover up melamine tainting.

Sanlu is 43 percent owned by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra Group, which has already slashed the value of its investment. China’s government took over and suspended Sanlu’s operations last month, and company heads have been detained for investigation.

China’s dairy industry has sped ahead in recent years, far outpacing regulatory structures aimed at ensuring safety and quality. Since the tainting scandal broke last month, strict standards for allowable melamine levels in food have been set and 5,000 government inspectors dispatched to provide 24-hour supervision over the industry.

Last week, police arrested a dairy farmer accused of producing 600 tons of melamine-spiked protein powder. Eight dairy farm owners and milk buyers were also arrested for purchasing the powder.

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Associated Press writer Cara Anna contributed to this report from Shanghai.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Chinese lawyers say pressured to drop milk cases

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Posted on 7th October 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 10/7/2008 10:49 AM

By GILLIAN WONG
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) _ Lawyers advising victims of China’s spreading tainted milk scandal said Tuesday they faced growing pressure from officials in central China to withdraw from the cases.

The families of many of the children sickened by milk laced with the industrial chemical melamine have been turning to a loose grouping of more than a hundred lawyers across China for free legal advice, said Chang Boyang, one of the lawyers.

The tainted milk has been blamed in the deaths of four babies and for sickening more than 54,000 children and shaken confidence worldwide in Chinese exports.

The government has been struggling to show the public that it is dealing successfully with the scandal, which comes on the heels of the widely praised Beijing Olympics. On Monday, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, acknowledged that the dairy industry was “chaotic” and had suffered from a grave lack of oversight, while pledging to monitor milk products from farm to dinner table.

But the government has also imposed controls on media coverage of the crisis, suggesting it does not want it to become a focal point of public dismay.

At least 14 lawyers from Henan province who have been advising people affected by the scandal were told by officials from the provincial government’s justice department to stop their activities, Chang told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

“They called me and my boss at my law firm and put pressure on me,” Chang said. “They said that this has become a political issue and that I ought to follow the arrangements set out by the government.”

“If this suggestion is disobeyed, the lawyer and the firm will be dealt with,” Chang cited the official as saying.

Henan’s justice department could not immediately be reached for comment.

Chinese authorities believe suppliers who were trying to cut costs diluted milk, then added melamine to fool quality control tests and make the product appear rich in protein. The chemical can cause kidney stones as the body tries to eliminate it and, in extreme cases, can lead to life-threatening kidney failure.

The State Council has ordered hospitals to provide free treatment for sick infants, but the lawyers want the government to compensate the victims.

Lawyers in the group have already helped the parents of a 1-year-old boy allegedly sickened by compromised milk to file a lawsuit against Sanlu Group Co., the dairy at the center of the crisis. The baby’s medical bills are not covered under the State Council’s directive because he became sick before the scandal broke on Sept. 12, according to a report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine. Free medical care is only available to those sickened after that date.

The court in Henan has still not said if it will hear the case, which was filed late last month and is believed to be the first suit filed amid the scandal.

Chang said the lawyers have been preparing other clients for a potential joint lawsuit if the government continues to refuse to provide compensation.

Chang said although he and the other lawyers from Henan took their names off the list of volunteers for the group of lawyers, they still continued to field calls and offer advice.

“This incident will not affect my work. I was just giving the authorities ‘face’ by taking my name off the list,” Chang said. “Sometimes you’ve got to learn to compromise.”

The scandal — which has spread overseas with Chinese milk products pulled out of stores in dozens of countries — has forced the government to fire local and even high-level officials for negligence, and make repeated promises to raise product safety standards.

China’s iconic White Rabbit candy fell victim to the scandal after its Shanghai-based maker said it may have been tainted. The candy was pulled off supermarket shelves in the U.S., Europe and Asia. But a state-run newspaper said Tuesday it is now back in production.

Guan Sheng Yuan Co. did not say when White Rabbit candy would go on sale again, according to China Daily. The company could not be immediately contacted Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s vice minister of health, Cao Minh Quang, said Tuesday that 23 milk products had tested positive for melamine. The country has already recalled 300 tons of products, most imported from China, said chief health ministry inspector Tran Quang Trung.

The country’s top quality supervision agency said Tuesday new tests on liquid dairy products sold domestically found no traces of melamine, official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Parents file lawsuit in China against dairy firm

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Posted on 2nd October 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 10/2/2008 12:45 AM

By SCOTT MCDONALD
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) _ The parents of a baby allegedly sickened in China’s tainted milk crisis are suing one of the country’s biggest dairies in the first known lawsuit stemming from the scandal, a lawyer said Thursday.

Although product liability lawsuits have become more common in recent years, the lawyer, 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,” Ji said told The Associated Press. China is marking its founding with a weeklong holiday, and government agencies are closed.

The hospitalized 14-month-old from central China’s Henan province was fed infant formula made by Sanlu Group Co. from birth, according to a report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine.

Lawyers said they had not heard of any other civil lawsuits being filed in response to the melamine contamination of liquid milk, yogurt and other products made with milk. Four infants have died and more than 50,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated formula, which has been linked to kidney stones.

The lawsuit comes amid increasing public awareness of an individual’s legal rights in China. Some parents who lost their children when shoddily built schools collapsed in a massive earthquake in May reportedly tried to sue local governments, but were offered cash in return for signing pledges not to pursue legal action.

Ji said one of the sick child’s parents filed a lawsuit in a court in Zhenping county seeking US$22,000 (150,000 yuan) in compensation from Sanlu for medical, travel and other expenses incurred after the child developed kidney stones. The amount could go up because the child is still being treated.

China’s State Council, the Cabinet, has ordered hospitals to provide free treatment for sick infants, but the baby is at Beijing Children’s Hospital, which will only offer free treatment to children diagnosed ill after Sept. 12, when the scandal broke, Caijing magazine said.

One lawyer suggested his profession was under pressure to not accept lawsuits connected with the scandal.

“About one week ago, the Beijing Judicial Bureau asked Beijing lawyers to attend a meeting and requested them not to accept problematic milk powder-related cases,” said Zhou Shifeng, who was out of town and did not attend the meeting.

Other Beijing lawyers told The AP they had not come under any pressure to reject such cases.

On Wednesday, China said 15 more companies were accused of selling compromised products found to be contaminated with melamine after a new series of tests. The tainted samples were mostly milk powder products for adults.

Thirty-one samples of Chinese milk powder provided by 20 companies were found tainted with melamine after new testing, according to data seen Wednesday on China’s food safety administration’s Web site. Five of those companies had already been fingered in the scandal. Product safety officials could not be reached for comment.

The scandal has sparked global concern about Chinese food imports and recalls in several countries of Chinese-made products including milk powders, biscuits and candies such as the widely sold White Rabbit sweets, which have been pulled from shelves in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Officials in the United States on Wednesday reported finding tainted White Rabbit candies for sale at Asian food markets in the state of New Jersey, after finding them earlier in California and Hawaii. Officials in Germany said they had discovered them for sale in the southern state of Baden Wuerttemburg.

The Shanghai-based maker of the candy, Guan Sheng Yuan Co., said last week it was halting production of the sticky, taffy-like confection, an iconic brand beloved by generations of Chinese.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Taiwan says melamine found in Nestle milk powders

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Posted on 2nd October 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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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.

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

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

China dairy brand won't survive tainted formula

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Posted on 24th September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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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: 'Out of control' dairy system led to abuse

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Posted on 23rd September 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 9/23/2008 9:09 AM

By TINI TRAN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) _ China’s agriculture minister acknowledged Tuesday that the country’s milk-gathering system was “out of control” and led to abuses that put contaminated dairy products in stores across Asia, sickening some 54,000 babies and killing four.

At least six Asian countries banned or curbed imports of Chinese dairy products, and the World Health Organization warned of possible smuggling of melamine-tainted infant formula across borders. The European Union told customs authorities to keep a closer eye on food imports from China.

Melamine, used to make plastics and fertilizer, has been found in infant formula and other milk products from 22 Chinese 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.

Since the discovery of tainted milk was made public, China’s government has scrambled to respond. Recent days have seen a number of arrests and forced resignations of officials.

Chinese state television reported that the company at the center of the scandal, Sanlu Group Co., received complaints about tainted formula beginning last December and waited eight months to tell the local government, which then waited another month before informing higher authorities.

Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai told a meeting with the health and public security ministries that the industrial chemical melamine was likely added at stations that collect milk from small individual dairy farmers.

“Since milk stations began only in recent years, the country now has no specific method of supervising them, or clear-cut supervision department. The purchasing process of raw milk is basically out of control,” Sun said, according to a summary of his comments posted Tuesday on his ministry’s Web site.

“We must crack down on them with the greatest determination and the toughest measures,” Sun said in the meeting held late Monday.

A group of 316 Chinese milk producers and retailers issued a joint statement promising to keep the dairy industry clean, state broadcaster China Central Television reported late Tuesday.

Among other things, producers promised to reject sub-standard raw materials, strictly inspect production, and take responsibility for product quality. Retailers also promised closer inspections.

Sanlu had no comment Tuesday about the allegations on state television.

CCTV reported Monday night that an investigation by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, found that Sanlu had been receiving complaints about its infant formula as early as December 2007. The dairy company discovered melamine in its milk powder in June but did not report it to city officials until Aug. 2, it said.

“During these eight months, the company did not inform the government and did not take proper measures, therefore making the situation worse,” CCTV said.

The Shijiazhuang city government then failed to report the case to the Hebei provincial government until Sept. 9, CCTV said. Sanlu products were recalled from stores two days later and Shijiazhuang’s top Communist Party official fired.

Anthony Hazzard, the Western Pacific director of the World Health Organization, said 82 percent of the children made sick by the formula were 2 years old or younger.

The sick included 12,892 babies in hospitals, 39,965 who have received outpatient treatment, and an additional 1,579 patients discharged from hospitals, he said, citing China’s Ministry of Health.

Hazzard said countries had been advised to focus particularly on smuggled formula by the International Food Safety Authorities (INFOSAN), a network of 167 countries organized by the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

He said authorities do not know at this stage what countries may have received the contaminated products.

“I think the greatest fear is if there has been illegal movement of the heavily contaminated products rather than the legal movement of products that may have very low levels of melamine,” said Hazzard, speaking in Manila where the WHO’s regional headquarters is located.

The head of the Chinese agency that monitors food and product safety stepped down Monday. 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.

According to the Health Ministry, of the 53,000 sickened children, 12,892 remain hospitalized, with 104 in serious condition. Another 39,965 children were treated and released.

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

Four Hong Kong children have been reported with kidney stones.

European Commission spokeswoman Nina Papadoulaki said the EU’s 27 member states do not import baby formula or other dairy products from China.

But she said national customs authorities across the EU were asked last week to step up checks on imports of “composite products,” such as bread or chocolate, to ensure they contain no traces of contaminated milk.

One of China’s biggest milk producers, China Mengniu Dairy Co., saw its stock price plummet slightly more than 60 percent in Hong Kong trading Tuesday after its products were found tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

Mengniu, China’s No. 1 dairy producer in total volume, said only a small portion of its products were contaminated and blamed the contamination on “the illegal acts of some irresponsible milk collection centers and raw milk dealers.”

“The board wishes to sincerely apologize for the incident and any inconvenience caused to the public,” the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.