As we are bombarded with hourly updates on Tiger's harem, China uncovers more melamine-tainted milk powder. Shanghai Daily reported yesterday that employees from a Chinese dairy company have been taken into police custody on suspicion of selling tonnes of melamine-tainted milk powder.
Three people from the Shaanxi Jinqiao Dairy Co, in northern Shaanxi province, have been detained and accused of producing and selling toxic food, Chinese state media reported yesterday. The police operation comes just over a year after a nationwide contamination scandal involving the lacing of milk powder with the industrial chemical killed six and sickened an estimated 300,000.
I wrote extensively on this last year having lost my girl Labrador, Bessie, to renal failure. Though this time, one year on, it seems that China is attempting to do a house cleaning but we must remain vigilant. I for one will eschew Chinese food products for quite some time.
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Let's not forget the loss of our pets to this naked greed. We know that some Chinese babies died of melamine-tainted formula milk (official count is six) but it's not clear to this day just exactly how many due to China's ferociously secretive regime.
In 2007 thousands of U.S. pets were killed or sickened because of melamine contained in pet food that imported from China. Unexplained animal deaths and illnesses continue to this day, without noticeable action or concern by agencies responsible for protecting the public.
I'm still not satisfied that China is doing all it can to ensure safety in its food products. Earlier this year Chinese health experts released this statement, finally admitting its linkage to kidney stones:
Drinking milk tainted with the chemical melamine increases the risk of developing kidney stones, health experts in China have confirmed. The research is the first to positively link the plastic-making chemical with kidney problems, though doctors had strongly suspected a causal relationship. Melamine-tainted milk is blamed for the deaths of six children in China and making another 290,000 people sick.
Yes, China did execute two persons. The Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang convicted Zhang Yujun, a cattle farmer we're told, of producing 600 tonnes of tainted protein powder in Shandong province in eastern China. Geng Jinping, a milk trader, was also found guilty of producing and selling toxic products to dairy companies. They were sentenced to death.
In contrast, Tian Wenhua, a Communist Party member and Chair of the Sanlu Group (you will remember that this is a former joint venture company with the New Zealand transnational corporation Fonterra) received a life sentence. During the trial Ms Tian made clear that Sanlu (and not only their suppliers) was adding melamine to milk products. Other executives of Sanlu received prison terms from five to 15 years.
The deliberate adulteration of milk products with the substance melamine is a serious crime and should be treated as such. But in China the court system delivers little more than show-trials designed to displace the anger of the parents of poisoned children and is an empty attempt to repair the damage done to the government's reputation.
The sentencing of two middle men to death does not provide justice; it is simply a kind of warped state-sponsored vengeance carried out on two scapegoats whose actions were symptomatic of systemic problems of food safety and regulation in China. This is the real scandal.
On November 24, China executed two people for their part in the 2008 contamination scandal. Zhang Yujun received the death penalty for endangering public safety and Geng Jinping was killed for producing and selling toxic food. Chinese officials said the pair were the only ones who had been executed over the contamination incidents, although 19 other people have also been jailed.
Ah, but in a separate development, the first civil case related to the melamine incidents was postponed indefinitely this week, reported China Daily. The official English language publication said the initial hearing was heard at the end of November in Beijing, with the father of a 20-month-old child demanding compensation of US$8,000 from the Sanlu Group and a supermarket chain. The second hearing was cancelled after the defendants demanded further investigation into the link between their child's illness and the milk powder.
Further, censorship in China played a role in exposing the public to greater risk. Prior to the Olympics, when the incidents of poisoning were in the tens of thousands, reporting on issues related to food safety was proscribed. While journalists in China knew of the poisoning, efforts to expose the scandal were censored (The Economist, 23 October 2008).
The death sentences handed down are politically-motivated state-sanctioned murder. The sentences were given to distract from the fact that the scandal resulted from a lack of transparency, regulation and democracy. The sentences cannot be construed in any way as justice.
Summing up, this is China's worst-ever food safety scandals, involving tainting of infant formula which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure. Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics among a host of other things, was cut into milk powder to boost protein levels and increase profits of suppliers. As simple as that.
Melamine is used to make fertilizers, plastics and other industrial goods. It is rich in nitrogen and can fool tests for protein in food products, leading unscrupulous food processors to use it in food and dairy products.
For further in-depth assessment of how melamine affects us and our children, read this blog from Bill Marler who is a personal injury lawyer and a national expert in foodborne illness litigation. |
