The Chinese authorities, seeking to restore battered credibility in its food and drug products, put up a dog and pony show in the hope of alleviating the world's outrage: round up the usual suspects and let's have an exemplary trial. What they haven't done as yet is telling us the truth. Why did they cover up the fact that it was known to them prior to the Olympic Games? They are quick at rebukes as last year the Chinese embassy in Washington declared that it was "unacceptable for some to launch groundless smear attacks on China" over food and drug safety problems. Well, color me unimpressed! The ultimate blame falls on the government and the government alone. Below is an excerpt given from officialdom:
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 high in protein content.
Prosecutors in the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court accused Mr. Zhang of producing 776 tons of "protein powder" that contained melamine from October 2007 through August 2008, 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.
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.
The tell-tale signs of mismanagement and lack of probity were abundantly clear, you decide:
2004: More than 200 Chinese infants suffer malnutrition and dozens die after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients. Babies who consumed the formula develop what Chinese doctors called "big head disease," causing their heads to swell while their bodies wasted away.
2006: Diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient in automotive anti-freeze, is fraudulently labeled in China as glycerin and ends up in Panama, where it is added to cough syrup, antihistamines, calamine lotion, and rash ointment, killing at least 51 people and sickening 68. Diethylene glycol also lands in 260,000 bottles of cold medicine: Families report 365 deaths.
March 2007: Melamine in Chinese wheat gluten and rice protein kills an unknown number of pets worldwide, leading to a recall of more than 100 brands of pet food in the United States, Canada, and South Africa. Chinese authorities officially ban the use of melamine in food products. Did they? I think not.
April 2007: U.S. toy companies recall millions of children's products made in China after they are found to contain dangerous levels of lead, which can cause anemia, kidney abnormalities and brain damage.
May 2007: Customs officials in Panama find diethylene glycol in 6,000 tubes of toothpaste that came from China. In addition to United States and Panama, tainted toothpaste is later found in Australia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
June 2007: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bans imports of five types of farm-raised fish and seafood from China after finding they contained drugs and cancer-causing chemicals banned in the United States.
November 2007: Contaminated heparin, a blood thinner, is linked to 81 deaths in the United States, The contaminated drug, which originated in China, is discovered in 11 countries. Heparin is made from the mucous membranes of the intestines of slaughtered pigs that, in China, are often cooked in unregulated family workshops. The contaminant, identified as oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, a cheaper substance, slipped through the usual testing and was recognized only after more sophisticated tests were used.
As for the tainted milk scandal it came out, apparently, only because San Lu's New Zealand partner, Fonterra, which had known about the melamine contamination, finally had the guts and foresight to alert the New Zealand government and take the matter up with Chinese authorities. Fonterra, which has a 43% stake in San Lu and three members on its seven-member board (Fonterra, btw, is also New Zealand's largest exporter of goods), says it had been trying to work within the Chinese system, advising a public recall but it accepted its partners' word that "they were not in a position to do it". The Olympic Games were imminent and the media were still under a two-year ban on bad-news stories. The fact that San Lu products are nearly all consumed in China (its only export market is Taiwan) made the cover-up more likely. The company typically sells its infant formula to Chinese mothers in poorer rural areas at up to one-third the price of competitors in richer urban areas. Profit margins are slim, creating an inducement to cheat.
Melamine resin or melamine formaldehyde (also shortened to melamine) is a hard, plastic made from melamine and formaldehyde by polymerization. This plastic is often used in kitchen utensils and plates, often called melamine wares. It may also used as table lining such as formica, plastic chairs, countertops, flame retardants and even concrete. Being fire resistant, it has been made into fibers of fire resistant clothes that firemen use.
To date (according to the authorities) at least six children have died and more than 290,000 made ill from the contaminated milk prompting massive recalls around the world. I would wager the casualties are much higher.
Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the food and drug watchdog, the State Food and Drug Administration, was executed last year for taking bribes and dereliction of duty in the wake of a series of drug safety scandals.
In the lead-up to this farcical high-profile trial and after repeated promises that China has put a lid on the problem, fresh quality scares have surfaced. The melamine scare has also prompted quality inspectors to test tableware "following reports that some products contained poisonous ingredients," Xinhua said on Wednesday in a separate report.
More than 1,500 boxes of Chinese biscuits exported to Hong Kong and Singapore had also tested positive for melamine, local media reported last week.
China's Health Ministry last Wednesday promised to build a "pre-emptive" monitoring system to stamp out the use of black-listed non-food additives that have led to health scares involving eggs, seafoods, and sweets in recent years.
"We used to rely on crackdowns (to solve food problems) but now we are combining punishment with prevention with more stress on the latter," Su Zhi, a senior quality supervision official in the Ministry of Health, told Xinhua.
But the baby milk formula scandal has also opened up a festering debate about appropriate compensation for victims and their families.
Along with San Lu, a staggering 21 other local dairy companies that were found to have produced melamine-tainted milk have pledged 1.1 billion yuan (€114 million) to compensate victims and cover medical costs for affected children, a report posted on the Dairy Association of China website.
And lastly, Fonterra executives said they believed that their warnings, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, had reached government officials in the capital. But so far investigations have focused mostly on local officials, though the head of the country's product-safety watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision and Quarantine, resigned.
Draw your own conclusions. I for one, hope that the Chinese authorities will address food safety in a meaningful and truthful way. It is their chance to redeem themselves and come back to the fold. |
