Wednesday, September 17, 2008

CHINESE GOV IS KILLING BABIES BY BUSINESS LUST


POTED BY ANH
China's director of quarantine and inspection, up from about 1,200 on Tuesday.More than 1,300 infants are hospitalized. The illnesses include malnutrition, kidney stones and acute renal failure. Watch crowds of moms get their babies tested »Originally Chinese officials said all of the tainted formula had remained in China, other than a small amount that was exported to Taiwan. But Li said Wednesday that the powder has also been shipped to five other nations, including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Yemen, Chad and Burundi.Recalls of the products by the Yashili and Suokang companies have been made, according to Li.Of China's 175 baby milk powder production companies, 66 have already stopped production, Li said. Investigators are testing samples at the rest.China's Xinhua news agency reported that worried parents started lining up at 5 a.m. Wednesday to see doctors at Renmin Hospital in Shijiazhuang, the capital of the northern Hebei Province. Wang Lifang said she went to the hospital after medics at her local hospital 45 kilometers [28 miles] away in Xingtang County found problems with her two-month-old daughter."The county hospital found my daughter has kidney stones that are smaller than 4mm [less than a fifth of an inch]," the farmer in her 30s told Xinhua."My daughter is so young that the doctors worry the stones might not be washed out themselves so they told me to go to the provincial hospital."The report said the girl had drunk a little water."Doctors said I better not feed her powdered milk," Xinhua quoted a "tearful" Wang as saying."In the past few days, I fed her fresh milk bought from a neighbor who raises a cow but once I left home I did not know what to do."Other parents told Xinhua they wanted their children scanned for kidney stones as a precaution.Peng Jing, a mother in her 20s, said her two-month-old son had drunk about two small bags of Sanlu powdered milk."He seems OK, but we want to be 100 percent sure he is healthy so we came to have the tests," she told Xinhua at Renmin Hospital.Two brothers who sold fresh milk used to produce contaminated baby milk powder were arrested by Chinese investigators Monday and could face death if convicted, according to China Daily, the state-run newspaper. Watch who has been arrested »The raw milk had been watered down and a chemical added to fool quality checks, the newspaper said.The food safety scandal prompted China agricultural officials to start a nationwide inspection of its dairy industry.While 19 people were detained for questioning, the only ones arrested so far are the brothers who supplied about three tons of milk each day to the Sanlu Group, which manufactured the baby formula, the paper said.Investigators said the brothers confessed to watering down the raw milk and mixing in tripolycyanamide, also known as melamine. They said they did it to recover losses suffered when the factory rejected earlier milk shipments, the paper reported.The brothers are charged with producing and selling toxic and hazardous food, which carries a possible death penalty, the paper said.Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation.The chemical is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants.Sanlu Group has recalled more than 8,200 tons of the tainted formula following reports of sickened babies, Xinhua said. Watch angry parents demand answers at Sanlu »Sanlu, one of China's leading dairy producers, has also sealed off more than 2,100 tons of contaminated product, and another 700 tons still need to be recalled, the news agency said.Chinese investigators have found melamine in nearly 70 milk products from more than 20 companies, Li said Wednesday. Products made by Sanlu had the highest concentration of the chemical.It is not the first time Sanlu has been connected to a scandal involving tainted milk powder, according to China Daily.In 2004, at least 13 infants in the eastern Anhui province died of malnutrition after drinking milk powder that had little to no nutrition. The illegally manufactured milk was falsely labeled with the Sanlu brand, according to the paper.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said no Chinese baby formula has been allowed on the market in the United States. In a statement on its Web site, the FDA said it had reached out to all five companies making formula in the United States and none has used formula or source materials from China.

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