China Recalls Infant Formula

[Zach]

China Recalls Infant Formula
September 13, 2008
The New York Times

By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG -- China’s best-known producer of infant formula, the Sanlu Group, recalled 700 tons of its formula on Friday after the product was linked to the death of at least one baby and kidney stones in at least 50 more.

China’s Health Ministry announced an inquiry into the quality of all infant formulas. It promised “serious punishment” for those found responsible for the presence of a contaminant, melamine, in the Sanlu formula.

A team of doctors and investigators showed up at Sanlu’s factory Friday representing the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the State Food and Drug Administration as well as the Health Ministry, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Sanlu ordered the recall and promised its own investigation after determining that samples of its formula manufactured before Aug. 6 had been contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical, according to the official China Daily newspaper. Exported Chinese pet food laced with melamine killed thousands of pets last year in the United States.

Sanlu officials did not answer calls to the company’s headquarters in Shijiazhuang, in Hebei Province. It was not clear what production changes were made by Sanlu on Aug. 6 that prompted the company to conclude that formula produced after that date was safe.

There have been reports of babies developing kidney stones and renal failure in at least seven provinces. A spate of cases in Gansu Province in western China triggered the recall.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration said that no infant formula from China has been approved for import but that consumers should be cautious since limited quantities of tainted products might have found their way into some ethnic grocery stores.

Fake infant formula is a particularly sensitive subject in China following a scandal four years ago in which 13 infants died after drinking substandard formula that carried the Sanlu brand name but had been produced by counterfeiters.

An ingredient of plastics and fertilizers, melamine is sometimes added by dishonest merchants to animal feed in China. The melamine causes a common test of animal feed to show that the feed contains more protein than it actually has.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/asia/13milk.html?hp

[okarol]

First the pets and now the babies?

 

[monrein]

Greed has no conscience.

[Zach]

More bad news out of China.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-AS-China-Baby-Formula-Recall.html

China tainted milk scandal widens

September 19, 2008
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:16 a.m. ET

BEIJING (AP) -- China's tainted milk crisis widened Friday after tests found the industrial chemical melamine in liquid milk produced by three of the country's leading dairy companies, the quality watchdog said.

Tainted baby formula has been blamed for killing four infants and sickening 6,200 in China since the scandal broke last week. Some 1,300 babies, mostly newborns, are currently in hospitals and 158 of them are suffering from acute kidney failure. Thousands of parents across the country were bringing their children to hospitals for health checks.

The crisis was initially thought to have been confined to tainted milk powder. But about 10 percent of liquid milk samples taken from Mengniu Dairy Group Co. and Yili Industrial Group Co. -- China's two largest dairy producers -- contained melamine, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Milk from Shanghai-based Bright Dairy also showed contamination.

Hong Kong's two biggest grocery chains, PARKnSHOP and Wellcome, pulled all liquid milk by Mengniu from shelves Friday. A day earlier, Hong Kong had recalled milk, yogurt, ice cream and other products made by Yili Industrial Group Co.

Starbucks Corp. said its 300 cafes in mainland China had pulled milk supplied by Mengniu. Seattle-based Starbucks said no employees or customers had fallen ill from the milk.

And Singapore called on retailers Friday to remove a Chinese-made yogurt bar from stores because the product may be contaminated.

The scandal began with complaints over milk powder by Sanlu Group Co. -- one of China's best-known and most respected brands. But it quickly became a much larger problem as government tests found that one-fifth of the companies producing baby milk powder had melamine in their products.

Melamine is a toxic industrial chemical that can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. It 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 it to watered-down milk to cover up the resulting protein deficiency.

The scandal is the latest in a series of problems with tainted products made in China. The crisis has raised doubts 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.

Though most of the suspect dairy products are only sold domestically, two of the companies involved exported baby formula to five countries in Asia and Africa.

Other products such as milk, yogurt and ice cream went to Hong Kong, while Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority, known as AVA, warned customers against eating Yili-brand Natural Choice Yogurt Flavoured Ice Bar with Real Fruit after Hong Kong food safety authorities said a sample of the product was found to contain low levels of melamine.

''As a precautionary measure, AVA has advised importers and retailers to remove this product from the market and withhold them from sale immediately, pending the result of AVA's investigation and tests,'' the authority said in a statement. ''AVA advises consumers who have bought the implicated product not to consume them.''

The AVA said it was testing other imported milk and dairy products from China for melamine contamination.

Two distributors said Friday that Sanlu ordered them to pull its baby formula off store shelves in early July, weeks before the company went public with the melamine contamination.

The statements by the distributors in Hebei province, where Sanlu is headquartered, raise further questions about when the company and government knew milk powder being fed to babies was tainted with a banned chemical.

A New Zealand stakeholder in Sanlu has said it was told in early August, before the start of the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 8, that there was a problem. The dairy farmers' group Fonterra, which owns 43 percent of Sanlu Group, told the New Zealand government, which informed Chinese officials.

The public was not told until Sept. 11 that the powder, used in baby formula and other products, was laced with melamine.

''We were asked by Sanlu to take all their 2007 to July 2008 baby powder off the shelves in early July'' and replace it with new powder, said one of the distributors, Zhang Youqiang.

''Then things got weird. In early August, they came to us again and said all the new Sanlu baby milk powder we had just put on the shelves'' did not meet a certain government standard unrelated to product quality, said Zhang, who declined to give his company name for fear of offending Sanlu. He said it was not clear what the standard was that had not been met.

Zhang said he now has warehouses full of contaminated milk powder and is trying to get refunds from Sanlu.

Another distributor, Liang Jianqiang, said he was also trying to get money from Sanlu. He also took Sanlu baby milk powder out of stores in July.

''They told me there would be a new formula that's better quality. They did this again in August and September,'' he said. Liang also did not want to disclose the name of his company.

Phone calls to Sanlu rang unanswered Friday and its Web site was not working. China's quality watchdog did not respond after asking to be sent a fax with questions.

The quality watchdog said it intended to ''severely punish those who are responsible,'' according to a notice posted on the agency's Web site. It said all the batches that tested positive were being recalled.

[Zach]

China milk scandal claims victim outside mainland

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080921/ap_on_re_as/as_china_baby_formula_recall&printer=1;_ylt=A0wNcxdqbtZI3MIAqQn9xg8F

By SCOTT McDONALD
9-21-08

A Hong Kong toddler has developed a kidney stone after drinking Chinese milk — the first reported victim outside the mainland affected by a widening scandal over a toxic chemical found in baby formula and other Chinese dairy products.

More than 6,200 infants have become sick and four babies have died in China after being fed baby formula laced with melamine, a banned industrial chemical.

No illnesses had been reported elsewhere until the Hong Kong government said late Saturday that a 3-year-old girl was diagnosed with a kidney stone after drinking milk produced by the Chinese dairy Yili that contained melamine.

The Hong Kong government also announced Sunday that tests found melamine in Chinese-made Nestle milk. The Dairy Farm milk was made by Nestle's division in the Chinese coastal city Qingdao, it said.

The Swiss food and drinks giant issued a statement Sunday saying that none of its China-made dairy products contained melamine.

"Nestle once again expresses confidence that none of its products in China is made from milk adulterated with melamine," the statement said. It did not specifically respond to the Hong Kong report of tainted Dairy Farm milk.

Nestle offices in Hong Kong and Geneva did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Calls after work hours to its Beijing office and Beijing hot line went unanswered.

Meanwhile, Singapore said Sunday melamine was detected in samples of White Rabbit-brand Creamy Candy. The popular Chinese milk candy was pulled from shelves in the Philippines last year after health officials there claimed it was tainted with formaldehyde.

Chinese candy maker Guan Sheng Yuan Co. denied the Philippine allegations, saying the candy tested was likely a counterfeit version and subsequent tests showed samples of the candy were formaldehyde-free.

Already on Friday, Singapore suspended the sale and import of all Chinese milk and dairy products including milk, ice-cream, yogurt, chocolate, biscuits and candy, as well as any other products containing milk from China as an ingredient.

Japan, Malaysia and Brunei have also recalled or banned Chinese-made dairy products.

Since the problem of tainted milk products became public knowledge less than two weeks ago, the crisis has spread to include almost all of China's biggest dairy companies.

A top official with the World Health Organization said Sunday that delays in releasing critical information about contaminated Chinese milk had hampered Beijing's ability to rapidly deal with the problem and warn consumers.

Shigeru Omi, the WHO's head of Western Pacific operations, told reporters at a press conference in Manila that "some people withheld the information for some time," but he did not give specifics.

The scandal began with complaints over milk powder by Sanlu Group Co. — one of China's best-known and most respected brands. But it quickly became a much larger crisis as government tests found that one-fifth of the companies producing baby milk powder had melamine in their products.

A New Zealand stakeholder in Sanlu has said it was told before the start of the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 8 that there was a problem. The dairy farmers' group Fonterra, which owns 43 percent of Sanlu Group, told the New Zealand government, which informed Chinese officials.

The public was not told until Sept. 11 that the powder, used in baby formula and other products, was laced with melamine.

Melamine is used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen, which registers as protein in tests of milk. Though health experts believe ingesting minute amounts poses no danger, melamine can cause kidney stones, which can lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable.

Some of the farmers who sell milk to Chinese food companies are thought to have used melamine to disguise watered-down milk and fatten profit margins hurt by rising costs for feed, fuel and labor.

The parents of the Hong Kong girl diagnosed with a kidney stone took her for a precautionary checkup because she had been drinking Yili milk daily for the past 15 months. Yili Industrial Group Co. is one of 22 companies whose milk and dairy products were recalled after batches of their products were found to contain melamine.

The toddler was in good condition after receiving medical treatment and had been discharged from the hospital, the government said.

China's communist leadership has launched high-profile efforts to show it is on top of the crisis, with Premier Wen Jiabao appearing on state-run television Sunday to say dairy companies had to show more "social responsibility."

Wen was shown visiting a Beijing hospital where children were having health checks. He also stopped at a supermarket to look at dairy products.

"What we need to do now is to ensure that nothing like this happens in the future, not only in dairy products but in all food," Wen said.

Food and product safety scandals have been a feature of Chinese life. Only last year, the government promised to overhaul inspection procedures after exports of medicines, toys, pet food ingredients and other products killed and sickened people and pets in North and South America.

The chemical in the dangerous pet food was the same as in the milk scandal — melamine.

Many of the largest companies whose products have been recalled, such as Yili Industrial Group Co. and Mengniu Dairy Group Co., did not have government inspections before the problem became public. The government scrapped that exemption this past week.

[Zach]

Halloween is coming in a month.  Look out for candy made in China.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/world/asia/26melamine.html?hp

The New York Times
September 26, 2008
China’s Milk Scandal Now Seen as Risk in Europe

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
European Union regulators on Thursday ordered rigorous testing of imports containing at least 15 percent milk powder after concluding that tainted milk powder from China may well be circulating in Europe and putting children at risk.

The action, announced by the European Food Safety Agency and the European Commission, significantly expands the potential geographic reach of a milk adulteration scandal in China to now include a range of foods sold around the world. The Europeans said cookies, toffees and chocolates are the major concerns.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund also expressed concern on Thursday about the Chinese milk contamination and the implications for other foods. In the United States, some consumer groups called on the Food and Drug Administration to restrict imports of foods that may contain suspected dairy ingredients from China.

Milk products in China contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine have sickened more than 50,000 young children in recent weeks.

While it is illegal to import dairy products and baby formula from China into the European Union, European nations import many processed foods containing milk powder manufactured outside of Europe. Such products could contain milk powder originating in China.

While countries throughout Asia have already pulled Chinese dairy products from supermarket shelves as a precaution, it is now clear that the danger could go beyond milk itself. In 2007, the European Union imported from China about 19,500 tons of confectionary products, such as pastry, cake and biscuits and about 1,250 tons of chocolate and other food preparations containing cocoa.

“Children who consume both such biscuits and chocolate could potentially exceed the TDI by up to more than three times,” the European Food Safety Agency said Thursday, referring to the maximum daily intake of melamine the agency regards as safe. Levels above that could result in kidney stones, said Ian Palombi, a spokesman for the agency, in a telephone interview.

In Brussels, the European Commission was trying to assess the extent of the risk. “The problem is with the composite food products, which can be imported, even if they contain milk powder from China,” said Nina Papadoulaki, a spokeswoman. She said that the commission did not know how many companies selling snacks in Europe were manufacturing in China or buying ingredients there.

She said that member states and food companies in the European Union — who are responsible for ensuring food safety — had been asked to test products for melamine in the past 10 days, and so far had not detected a problem.

In the United States, some consumer groups called for stricter regulation as well. “It is now clear that China has exported dairy products like powdered milk and milk protein products around the globe and we know that some of them came to the United States, ” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “It is time for the FDA to take this issue seriously and stop the import of dairy products from China until this situation is under control.”

The United States this year has imported 2 million pounds of a milk protein called casein and other powdered milk proteins that are used as ingredients in many processed foods, according to FDA figures. This includes 293,000 pounds that were imported in July, when some Chinese authorities were aware of the contamination of dairy products with melamine.

The Food and Drug Administration did not immediately return calls for comment. Melamine is an industrial chemical used in plastics manufacturing that can be added to foods to artificially increase their apparent protein content in testing. Its presence was detected in pet foods originating from China last year.

Even if present in foods in Europe, melamine contaminated milk powder is not likely to cause the kind of public health disaster that is occurring among Chinese infants. In China, babies drank contaminated milk powder as their sole source of nutrition for weeks if not months on end; a handful have died.

Since the harm caused by melamine is related to weight, it is far less harmful to older children and not likely to be dangerous to adults. Also, for children and adults in Europe, melamine contaminated milk powder is but one small component of a broader diet. The toxic effects of melamine are cumulative, creating kidney stones that can in severe cases lead to kidney failure.

Still, children who eat very large quantities of sweets could be at risk.

This week, a number of countries and companies that had previously pulled Chinese dairy products off supermarket shelves, have started removing snack foods containing milk powder as well. On Thursday, members of the Philippine Association of Supermarkets removed China-made food products with milk ingredients.

In an increasingly globalized food economy, manufacturers increasingly produce with raw ingredients from all over the world, making it often difficult to track where ingredients originate. Kraft, the maker of Oreos, recently moved one of its large biscuit factories from Australia to China.

But Claire Regan, a corporate spokeswoman for the company, said that most of the products Kraft makes in China are distributed within China, although a “limited number” are exported to other countries.

The majority of products Kraft makes in China do not contain milk ingredients from the country and, where they do, the level of milk ingredients is very low, she said. Products made out of China do not contain Chinese milk ingredients.

[willieandwinnie]

Isn't this enough to just make you sick. 

[Sunny]

Corporate greed will always outweigh morality. That is why governmental oversight is needed. This is as evident in the Chinese product scandals as is in the American finance scandals.
I won't be eating White Rabbits anymore, much less any other Chinese imported food any time soon.

[Zach]

The FDA is on the trail.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-coffee-recall_websep27,0,6119403.story
chicagotribune.com

FDA issues warning on Chinese coffees, candy

By Stephen J. Hedges
Washington Bureau
5:14 AM CDT, September 27, 2008

WASHINGTON—The powdered milk contamination scare that has killed four Chinese infants and sickened 53,000 more reached American shores Friday when the Food and Drug Administration recommended that consumers avoid a line of coffees and a candy made in China.

The instant coffees involved—Mr. Brown's brand—are exported to the U.S. by King Car Food Industrial Co. Ltd. and are manufactured in China by Shandong Duqing Inc. King Car is recalling the products, along with a milk tea it produces, the FDA said.

The FDA also warned consumers not to eat White Rabbit candy from China, citing in part government testing in New Zealand that found "high levels" of the industrial compound melamine.

"In light of the widespread contamination of milk and milk-based products in China and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority's finding, the FDA recommends that consumers not eat White Rabbit Creamy Candy," the agency said.

The FDA said it is not aware of any illnesses in the U.S. linked to the candy or Mr. Brown's products.

But the FDA's action on the recalled coffee came four days after Canada took the same action in response to possible melamine contamination.

"I think they're catching up to the rest of the world," said Tony Corbo, the legislative representative of Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based consumer group. In response to written questions, FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek said, "The FDA is still in the process of determining how wide-spread the distribution is of Mr. Brown products in the United States. ... The FDA is stopping every shipment of White Rabbit Candies and Mr. Brown coffee products at the ports and testing them."

In China, powdered milk used to make baby formula was found several weeks ago to contain melamine, an ingredient that is used to make plastic and fertilizer. Initially the contamination was thought to be limited to Sanlu Group Co., a large dairy company that is owned in part by Fonterra, an international dairy corporation based in New Zealand.

As the crisis evolved and more infants fell ill with ailments that included kidney stones, Chinese authorities announced that products from as many as 22 other Chinese companies could be involved. They also revealed that the products may have been exported to other Asian countries.

Melamine contains nitrogen and can artificially boost protein level readings of such items as powdered foods, allowing exporters to charge more for what appear to be high-protein foods.

Melamine also was found last year in wheat flour from China that was used in North American pet food and animal feed. The pet food contamination led to the illness and death of thousands of pets.

The Chinese powdered milk scare already has expanded throughout Asia, parts of Europe and Canada.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) put the blame for the latest melamine problem on China's food safety system, which she said is deeply flawed, and filed legislation Friday that calls for a separate U.S. food safety agency.

"I think we have to be so concerned and so skeptical of China's food safety regulatory system," DeLauro said. "It's a fact that whatever exists is so weak that it cannot prevent a product from either being deliberately contaminated or inadvertently contaminated and then being shipped overseas."

The FDA did issue three earlier, general notices in the wake of China's melamine scare. The first, on Sept. 12, noted that infant formula from China had been found to be contaminated and warned consumers to avoid it. A Sept. 23 notice mentioned other products that could be contaminated, such as "candies, desserts and beverages," but did not list brand names.

The agency also said that it contacted the Chinese infant formula manufacturers and was given assurances from each company that those products were not exported to the U.S.

The FDA said that it also has searched for suspect formula in the U.S.

"This effort focused on areas of the country with large Chinese communities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York," the agency said. "To date, investigators have visited more than 1,400 retail markets and have not found Chinese infant formula present on shelves in these markets."

However, during another Chinese infant formula scare in 2004, one that led to the deaths of 13 infants, some of the bad formula was found in at least one U.S. store.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, the director of food safety at the Center for Science in Public Interest, said her group visited Chinese markets in the Washington area this week and purchased a number of food items that contained Chinese milk, either canned or as an ingredient.

"We found numerous products that contain milk from mainland China," Smith DeWaal said, "including milk. We found yogurt drinks in sizes packaged for young children, as well as candies, cookies, frozen pork buns."

DeWaal said she presented shopping bags full of those goods to FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach in a meeting Friday. She said the FDA's warning Friday, and its failure so far to issue warnings on other products, illustrates "the incredibly ineffective controls that FDA uses for imports."

Imports from China have become a particular challenge for the FDA as the volume of imported food has grown and funding and personnel cuts within the agency unfolded. After the 2007 melamine pet food scandal, the agency's methods for inspecting, testing and tracking imported food products came under congressional and public scrutiny. FDA officials acknowledged they are capable of inspecting just 1 percent of all imports each year.

The agency vowed to make changes. In June 2007 it banned five types of Chinese fish and seafood, citing tests that showed farm-raised Chinese fish contained prohibited antibiotics that could be carcinogens. It also halted a plan to close seven of its 13 agency laboratories, which test food and other products.

More recently it issued tougher guidelines for importers that will make it difficult to take shipments that have been rejected at one U.S. port and try to enter it in another port. That custom, known as "port-shopping," was sometimes used to circumvent tough inspectors.

[Zach]

September 29, 2008
Cadbury Recalls Chinese-Made Chocolates

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:19 a.m. ET

HONG KONG (AP) -- A Cadbury spokesman says preliminary results show its Chinese-made chocolates contain the industrial chemical melamine.

The spokesman said Monday it was too early to say how much melamine the chocolates contained.

He declined to give his name because of company policy.

Cadbury said earlier the tests ''cast doubt'' on the safety of its Chinese-made products but didn't elaborate.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-AS-Cadbury-Chocolate-Recall.html

[Zach]