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Melamine Tainted Milk Powder Still Being Stockpiled in China

admin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:26:57 +0000

China was fighting to maintain public confidence in its food safety after a massive stockpile of melamine-tainted milk powder was seized during raids on warehouses in the nation’s biggest city.

The seizures in Chongqing come three years after the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal, in which three babies died and 300,000 others were sickened by melamine-tainted milk in an episode that fatally undermined already fragile public trust in the government’s ability to keep food safe.

The discovery of the tainted milk powder, which was due to be made into pastry and ice-cream, has drawn attention to the inability of China’s government to police China’s vast and fragmented food chain.

In a bid to restore confidence, the city authorities in Chongqing, a municipal area with 35m inhabitants, have announced a 100-day crackdown on food and drug fraud in a mirror-image of a crackdown last year on mafia crime.

On Monday some 7,900 police in Chongqing were reportedly deployed to conduct city-wide raids on 600 premises suspected of producing illegal or fake food and pharmaceuticals.

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6 Chinese go on trial for selling melamine.

admin — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:17:01 +0000

By SCOTT MCDONALD

BEIJING (AP) — Six Chinese suspects went on trial Friday accused of making and selling the industrial chemical at the center of a tainted milk scandal blamed for killing six children and sickening nearly 300,000 others.

Among those in court Friday was the owner of a workshop that was allegedly the country’s largest source of melamine, the substance responsible for the health crisis that also saw Chinese food products pulled from stores worldwide, state media said.

Police say Zhang Yujun, 40, ran a workshop on the outskirts of Jinan in eastern Shandong province that manufactured and sold a “protein powder” composed mainly of melamine and malt dextrin, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The powder was added to watered-down milk to make it appear higher in protein content.

Prosecutors in the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court accused Zhang of producing 776 tons of the additive powder from October 2007 through August 2008, making it the largest source of melamine in the country. He allegedly sold more than 600 tons with a total value of 6.83 million yuan ($1 million), the court heard.

In the same case, a second man, Zhang Yanzhang, 24, was accused of buying and reselling 230 tons of powder to others.

State television showed both men in court in handcuffs with their heads bowed while being questioned by three judges. It was not immediately clear what penalties they face.

An official at the publicity office of Hebei Supreme Court confirmed that the trial started Friday but refused to give his name or other details.

Four other men were being tried in three separate courts across Hebei province for adding the chemical to raw milk and then selling it to Sanlu Group Co., the main company in the scandal, according to Xinhua.

Melamine can artificially inflate protein levels and was apparently added to watered-down milk to fool quality inspectors while boosting profits.

Zhang Heshe and Zhang Taizhen were accused of adding 77 pounds (35 kilograms) of the “protein powder” to 70 tons of raw milk and then selling it to Sanlu. Yang Jingmin and Gu Guoping were also charged with adding 53 pounds (24 kilograms) and 37 pounds (16.7 kilograms) of melamine, respectively.

The verdicts will be announced at an unspecified date, Xinhua reported.

The dairy company Sanlu, based in Shijiazhuang, confirmed earlier this week that it was bankrupt.

Xinhua reported Thursday that Sanlu has 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million) of net debt and that a branch of the Shijiazhuang City Commercial Bank was the creditor that applied to a court to have Sanlu declared bankrupt.

It said the intermediate court in Shijiazhuang had accepted the filing. Xinhua said Sanlu owes a creditor 902 million yuan ($132 million) it borrowed earlier this month to pay for the medical treatment of children sickened after drinking the company’s infant formula and for compensation of the babies’ families.

Wang Jianguo, spokesman for the Shijiazhuang city government, said the money was given to the China Dairy Industry Association for medical care and compensation fees for victims, according to a transcript of a news conference he gave Thursday.

A woman who answered the phone Friday at the association refused to answer any questions.

The issue of compensation for the families of the children sickened or killed has become a sensitive one, with courts so far not accepting any lawsuits filed by the families.

The Legal Daily newspaper reported that Tian Wenhua, Sanlu’s chairwoman and general manager, would go on trial Wednesday in Shijiazhuang for “selling fake and shoddy products.”

Sanlu, like a number of major Chinese dairies, had been exempt from government inspections because it was deemed to have superior quality controls — until high levels of the industrial chemical melamine were found in its baby formula and other products in September. Several other dairies were also found to have sold tainted goods.

Melamine poses little danger in small amounts, but larger doses can cause kidney stones and renal failure.

Sanlu is 43 percent-owned by New Zealand daily cooperative Fonterra Group.

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Potential Melamine foods in Malaysia tested and banned
admin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:30:24 +0000
Malaysia Orders Tests on All Imported China Food

Source: Reuters

24/09/2008
Kuala Lumpur, Sept 24 – The Malaysian government ordered safety tests on Wednesday on all food imported from China, even as Beijing sought to assure the world its products are safe.

Daily News Alerts
Malaysia’s health ministry said it had issued a “level 5″ alert on all Chinese food products coming into the country, which means they would be held and tested for safety before being released to the market.



Beijing is battling public alarm and international dismay after close to 13,000 Chinese children crowded hospitals, ill from infant milk formula tainted with melamine, a cheap industrial chemical that can be used to cheat quality checks.
Nitrogen-rich melamine can be added to watered-down milk to fool quality checks, which often use nitrogen levels to measure the amount of protein in milk. The chemical is used in making plastics.
On Wednesday, Australia, Indonesia and the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan joined the growing list of countries warning about the consumption of China-made milk products or pulling them off the shelves of stores and supermarkets.
Indonesia has temporarily banned imports of dairy products from China, and the Indonesian Food and Drugs Supervisory Agency has instructed all regional offices to pull out Chinese dairy products from stores for investigation.
"We don't want to take any risks, so we will still take safety measures," the head of the Food and Drugs Supervisory Agency, Husniah Rubiana Thamrin, told reporters.
Thamrin said the agency was also raiding stores for products such as yoghurt, ice creams and milk drinks from China, and would punish people who violated the ban.
Bhutan's Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority asked shops to stop selling all Chinese milk products as a "precautionary measure".
"The ban will be on until BAFRA investigates all milk-based food products from China, including laboratory analysis," a government statement said on Wednesday.
Australia on Wednesday issued fresh warnings for China and nearby nations in the wake of the scandal, advising its citizens overseas to avoid all Chinese-made milk products, unless companies have confirmed their goods are free from contamination.
The country has not received any dairy imports from China since April 2007.
Countries that have banned or recalled Chinese milk products include Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.