Thread: China : Melamine

Melamine added to feed
November 02, 2008 06:28 PM Sunday

BEIJING - Animal feed makers deliberately added an industrial chemical to their products, ignoring a year-old government rule meant to protect China’s food supply, a government official said.

Inspection teams have descended on feed makers nationwide in a “punishment” campaign to ferret out those found using excessive amounts of the chemical melamine, Agriculture Ministry official Wang Zhicai said in remarks posted on the ministry’s Web site and carried by state media Saturday.

Among the quarter of a million feed-makers and animal breeding farms inspected, inspectors found more than 500 engaged in illegal or questionable practices, with police further investigating 27 companies, Wang said. He likened the behavior of some of the companies to organized crime, calling them “black nests of gangsters.”

“Adding melamine to feed is a criminal act and must be firmly attacked,” Wang said.

His remarks were the latest by a government that is trying to appear responsive to a widening food scandal. In the nearly two months since the government first acknowledged that melamine contaminated the milk supply, the chemical has been detected in eggs, candy and other products. Its presence in feed raises fears about the safety of meat and fish.

Commonly used in plastics and fertilizers, melamine is high in nitrogen, which registers as high protein levels in routine tests of food and feed. Though experts say at low levels it does not pose a risk to human health, higher concentrations harm the kidneys.

At least four children died from drinking tainted infant formula and milk powder and tens of thousands of others were sickened. AFP

journal.com.ph

will they execute the wrong doers?

interesting question ,

suspect that if they can pin somebody that well may be the fate .

would rather the focus is on it never happening again , like most things the food chain is now global also .

China points a finger back
Fri, Nov 07, 2008
Reuters

BEIJING - CHINA, embroiled in a tainted milk scandal that has made thousands of infants sick, has published a list of foreign companies that failed to meet quality standards for imported products ranging from milk powder to rosewater.

At least four children died and tens of thousands were made ill by drinking milk powder adulterated with melamine, prompting many worried parents to switch to foreign-made formula.

Melamine, a compound used in making plastic chairs among other uses, is added to food to cheat nutrition tests and has since been found in other dairy products, eggs and animal feed, prompting recalls of Chinese-made products around the world.

China's quality watchdog intercepted 191 batches of problem foreign goods in July, including milk powder and other dairy products made by Australian and South Korean companies, the Beijing News said, citing the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).

Nearly nine tonnes of 'Ausnutria' brand milk powder produced by Australian dairy company Tatura Industries and supplied to an Australian-Chinese joint venture in southern Hunan province had failed a standard for E. sakazaki, a bacteria, according to a list posted on AQSIQ's website (aqsiq.gov.cn).

A company official at Tatura said the problem batch had passed quality inspections in Australia before being seized at Chinese customs.

'The products never made it into the local market,' Mr Tony McKenna, general manager of Nutritionals at Tatura, told Reuters by telephone.

'We've absolute faith in our quality systems, but we will comply with all of (the Chinese) requirements,' Mr McKenna said.

More than 14 tonnes of 'Pauls' brand milk imported from Australia had also failed a bacteria standard, the notice said.

'Pauls' milk is produced by Parmalat Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Italian dairy giant Parmalat.

Parmalat Australia said in a statement emailed to Reuters it had never been informed of any problems with its products by Chinese authorities.

'We are keen to assist in any way to clarify the issue but it is unusual that the issue has just been raised now and only through the media,' the statement said.

'All Parmalat products are subject to stringent quality standards, passing quality inspections in Australia prior to export,' it added.

Authorities also seized more than 4,000 pounds (1,970 kg) of a brand of cheese supplied by an American company to Chinese dairy producer Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, and other products ranging from British biscuits to chicken feet from Argentina.

It was not clear why the customs authority posted the list more than three months after the inspections, but the publication comes as China battles to improve its food safety system in the wake of a series of food and product-safety scandals. -- REUTERS

asiaone.com

Melamine resurfaces in dairy products
Shan Juan
10-07-2010

More melamine-tainted milk powder, which caused the deaths of six children in 2008, has been found in a northwestern dairy plant, once again raising concerns over poor supervision and management of food safety.

However, whether the 64 tons of problem products seized from a dairy plant in Qinghai province in late June were leftovers from the original batches of melamine-contaminated milk powder remained under investigation, the provincial quality watchdog said.

Six children died and 300,000 were sickened in 2008 from the contaminated milk.

"The latest discovery is very likely to be traced back, again, to that killing scandal," Wang Dingmian, former chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Dairy Association, told China Daily on Friday. "It should have been thoroughly destroyed but instead it was secretly stored."

This is the second time this year that contaminated milk products have been found. In late January, three domestic companies were caught selling melamine-tainted milk products, which health authorities confirmed were made from leftover tainted milk powder.

According to Wang Dingmian, the seizure calls into question the repeated government commitment to improve food safety and the effectiveness of a 10-day inspection launched by the government in February to track down and destroy the 2008 tainted milk products nationwide.

He blamed that on loopholes and poor skills in supervision.

He said companies can just transfer products to other locations, adding that most dairy companies involved in 2008 issued recalls but none of them had ever said the tainted products had been destroyed.

Test samples of the milk powder seized in June showed up to 500 times the maximum allowable level of the chemical, said the local quality watchdog.

Police traced the source to the Dongyuan Dairy Factory, in Minhe county of Qinghai province. Another 12 tons of processed tainted-milk products were seized.

Three samples of powder had been sent for testing to neighboring Gansu province's quality control bureau on June 25.

The bureau called police after test results showed the samples had excessive levels of the chemical.

The owner and production director of the factory have been detained.

Wang Zhongxi, deputy chief of the quality control bureau in Gansu, said unscrupulous traders had bought batches of the old tainted milk and planned to process and resell it.

About 38 tons of raw materials were purchased from North China's Hebei province, the source of the toxic baby formula scandal that brought down the Sanlu dairy company, police said.

Milk powder produced in the plant was mainly sold in East China's Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. Only a small amount was sold in Qinghai.

Zhejiang's food safety commission said on Friday that they had seized three tons of Dongyuan milk powder in food processing factories in the province.
The tainted milk powder, in 25-kg packages, was mainly used to produce dairy products like ice cream, said the commission.

Most of the contaminated milk powder was still being processed and had not entered the market, it said.

Health minister Chen Zhu said earlier that technological limitations affect the task of destroying the original batches of milk powder.

"That's not reasonable at all," Wang Dingmian noted. "As an industry expert, I had submitted a proposal on how to destroy the melamine-laced products in a cost effective and environmentally friendly way but they never listened."

Also, the responsibility to oversee the destruction needs to be clearly defined among government departments including health, quality control and commerce, he added.

Despite the fact there was only a relatively small amount of leftover milk powder in the hands of traders and plants, he didn't think a repetition of such an incident was out of the question.

Starting in 2004, many dairy plants in China began to add melamine, a chemical used in industrial processes like plastic manufacturing, to watered-down milk to make it appear rich in protein during quality tests, industry insiders said.

Health problems from the chemical include kidney stones and kidney damage, according to the World Health Organization.

The maximum amount of melamine allowed in powdered infant formula is 1 mg/kg and the amount of the chemical allowed in other foods and animal feed is 2.5 mg/kg, the WHO said in standards issued earlier this week.

That's in line with the Chinese standard put in place after the 2008 milk scandal.

"That's ridiculous as melamine, which is not naturally present in milk, should not be tolerated in food, even in trace amounts," Wang Dingmian said.

Meanwhile, in Jilin city, northeast China's Jilin province, authorities were testing samples of milk powder suspected of having excessive levels of melamine, the city's industry and commerce bureau said on Thursday.

The bureau seized more than 1,000 packages of milk powder produced in neighboring Heilongjiang province from a store after a random test on June 22 found one of them had high melamine content.

asianewsnet.net

I arrived back from China feeling quite ill and it took me a week to shake off what I suspect was MSG poisoning (well thats what the doctor advised me).

God knows what they put in their food and to be honest it doesn't even taste that good.

^ Could have been Soylent Green

I don't know what it was mate but I had terrible migraines with some vomiting and felt like shit for a week.

Come to think of it we had a problem a few years ago with the Chinese using formaldehyde and melamine in almost everything they were processing and under-cutting their prices drastically.

They were exposed and there was some people being executed but seems they have slipped back into shady areas.

Soylent Green - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

...Thorn sneaks into the basement of the assisted suicide facility, where he sees corpses being loaded onto waste disposal trucks. He secretly hitches a ride on one of the trucks, which is driven to a heavily guarded waste disposal plant. Once inside the plant, Thorn sees how the corpses are processed into Soylent Green wafers...

Just don't put any nasty old melamine in my soylent green.

Originally Posted by good2bhappy

will they execute the wrong doers?

I thought they did last time. The sentences were a draconian as the drug offense sentences here, nevertheless it appears to have happened again. Amazing!

it's such a secretive country ,, can we really believe anything that comes from there ?
a convenient lie always sends a reassuring message that all is ok .
and it's back to business as usual .

Six held in new tainted milk cases in China
21/08/2010

Police in China have arrested six people and detained 41 others for allegedly distributing milk powder tainted with the same chemical which killed infants in a 2008 scandal, state media said Saturday.


A customer is seen in a powdered milk aisle at a Beijing supermarket. Police in China have arrested six people and detained 41 others for allegedly distributing milk powder tainted with the same chemical which killed infants in a 2008 scandal, according to state media.

Three of the six were employees of a factory in the northwestern province of Qinghai, which last month was found to have shipped milk powder contaminated with melamine to neighbouring Gansu province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The three others arrested were suspected of involvement in hiding tainted milk products that should have been destroyed in 2008 and then selling them to the Qinghai plant, the agency said, citing food safety authorities.

Police were still investigating the cases of the 41 others in detention, Xinhua said.

Melamine is used to make plastics but has been widely and illegally added to dairy products in China to give the appearance of higher protein content.

In 2008 it was found in products from 22 Chinese dairy companies in a massive scandal blamed for the deaths of at least six infants and for making 300,000 others ill across China.

It also led to huge worldwide recalls of Chinese dairy products.

China's government has repeatedly said all tainted products were seized and destroyed after the scandal and that there was no further public health threat, but reports of contaminated products continue to trickle out.

Earlier this month, China's health ministry refuted claims that milk powder produced by the NASDAQ-listed Chinese company Synutra had caused three infant girls to grow breasts.

bangkokpost.com

Originally Posted by Mid

would rather the focus is on it never happening again

Originally Posted by Mid

Police in China have arrested six people and detained 41 others for allegedly distributing milk powder tainted with the same chemical which killed infants in a 2008 scandal, state media said Saturday

So much for "focus", Mid.

China's Baby killers triumph over parents
Terry Ng
Monday, 03 January 2011


Victims of tainted milk powder scandal plead in vain for justice

When Zhou Xiong looks at his three-year-old son, Zixuan, he feels hopeless. The child has had two operations since his right kidney stopped functioning at the age of nine months.

It's not the medical catastrophe that makes Zhou feel hopeless. It is the fact that justice has not been done by his son, who is being cared for by relatives in Chibi, a prefecture-level city in Hubei Province, while Zhou and his wife work in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, to make enough money to pay for the child's medical expenses.

"I have no options left," Zhou says. "Everything I did was all for nothing. I just feel so much pain whenever I think of my boy … I almost collapse."

So far six children have died in the 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal, in which an estimated 300,000 children became victims, according to Chinese authorities. Of those, a further 860 were hospitalized with kidney stones and other kidney damage. Like Zixuan, others suffer from continuing medical problems that may well worsen as they age. Milk power produced by the Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group, then one of China's biggest milk product producers, appeared to have been spiked with the chemical melamine to make it appear to have a higher protein content. Melamine is normally used to manufacture a type of plastic commonly used to create kitchen counter tops. Ultimately 21 other companies were found to have used melamine to a lesser degree, including some of China's most prominent dairies, Mengniu, Yili and Yashili.

But if it is a story of alarming corporate deception, it is also a story of a broken legal system. Hundreds of thousands of parents continue to entreat the milk powder manufacturers to pay their medical expenses. Fearful of the consequences, they have completely abandoned any notion of suing government authorities and the manufacturers, who declared the milk extremely safe for drinking and then apparently tried to cover up the scandal before, during and after the 2008 Olympics. Attempting to obtain redress far too often has resulted in beatings by thugs or police for the plaintiffs.

The compensation package was a paltry 200,000 yuan (US$30,033) for a dead child and 30,000 yuan each for those with serious complications. All other children received 2,000 yuan each.

Zhou rejected the 2,000 yuan. He has tried to sue Sanlu, protested at the company's door and has been to Beijing to petition the authorities, all to no effect. Not one court on the Chinese mainland has even agreed to a hearing for his son.

Zixuan's health checkups and treatment run at more than 1,000 yuan a month. Zhou and his wife, Zhou Honghua, sold their pastry shop and Zhou found a job that pays about 2,000 yuan a month. Doctors told Zhou in September that they couldn't find his son's right kidney, meaning it had "atrophied."

The child's left kidney, which has already undergone two operations, is weak and unlikely to sustain the extra burden. If both kidneys fail, Zixuan will die. Kidney donors are virtually impossible to find.

"How come such a cute kid has to bear such pain?" Zhou says. "No one proposes any follow-up medical treatment plan for the affected kids."

The NGO Transition Institute has raised 39,700 yuan ($5,958) for Zhou, says institute researcher Jin Fusheng. The institute will set up a website listing the names of about 10 parents in need of donations, Jin says.

Most of the poisoned children continue to struggle, says Jiang Yalin, mother of three-year-old Tangxin Yilin. They rely on such private donations after their failure to seek any form of legal redress. Without adequate compensation, some parents are hoping to establish a fund and asking for society to donate.

Others have reportedly started a campaign to monitor the quality of dairy products and then threaten manufacturers with exposure if their products are substandard. Jiang denies any such plan, saying parents don't have the skills or technology to monitor product quality.

The stakes are high and sensitive.

The signed note

Zhao Lianhai, a father whose son Zhao Pengrui is sick, was jailed for 30 months on November 10 for inciting social disorder after trying to peacefully draw attention to the plight of the poisoned children.

Zhao has not been seen by his family nor his lawyers since he was sent to prison. His wife, Li Xuemei, announced the end to their campaign for justice on behalf of families after entry to their home became impossible without agreement from the neighborhood committee and a newly arrived detail of around-the-clock security guards. Hong Kong reporters who tried to access the compound were beaten back by the guards.

Zhao had ripped off his shirt and declared he would appeal against the unjust sentence, his former lawyers say. It therefore came as a shock when two days later, Zhao's lawyers were told – not by Zhao – of a U-turn in attitude. They were handed a piece of paper with Zhao's signature that alleged Zhao had fired them both, abandoned his appeal and instead applied for medical parole. They were not permitted to see him in prison before the appeal deadline to confirm the decision.

After initial hopes that a deal had been struck to free Zhao, his whereabouts remain unknown and authorities have refused to announce whether his medical parole was approved.

Meanwhile his family members, whose outspoken comments outside the Daxing District Court in Beijing on November 10 when Zhao was sentenced helped attract international attention to the case, have turned silent and refuse to speak to the media.

The expensive and sinister wall of silence that surrounds Zhao extends across an entire nation: Zhao's former lawyer Peng Jian says more than 200 parents submitted applications to courts demanding milk powder manufacturers pay more compensation, but most refused to register the parents' application. Even of those that did register, most did not hold hearings.

No explanation has ever been offered as to why registrations were rejected or why the courts would not fix a date for trials.

Despite vowing to continue with their court action, many parents believe the legal campaign will yield nothing as the two-year deadline for civil lawsuits passed with courts still ducking trials.

Peng says in theory if the parents can prove that they filed legal documents over the last two years, they can still continue with their legal action. However, the road will be bumpy.

Burden of proof

Parents must prove that the shareholders of the bankrupt Sanlu are responsible for the scandal or that the relevant government authorities have been negligent.

"It's difficult for parents to provide proof that the scandal was caused by the mistakes of shareholders," Peng says. "If they sue the government authorities, I doubt whether the courts will accept the case."

Proof is the biggest challenge, says mother Jiang Yalin. She has to prove her girl's problem was caused by contaminated milk powder. Hospital reports only record symptoms – kidney stone problems – not the cause of the illness.

"The burden of proof rests with the parents," she says.

Four desperate parents including Zhou, Li Jieli, Chen Lu and Ye Hongbo went to Hong Kong on May 4 to demand HK$12,369 ($1,590) to HK$33,490 in compensation from Fonterra Brands (China), a Hong Kong-incorporated company that owned 43 percent of Sanlu's shares. The world's largest dairy exporter, New Zealand company Fonterra had paid US$107 million for its share on Dec. 1, 2005.

The parents accused the company of delaying the release of information about the contamination for six weeks and failing in its responsibility to oversee Sanlu.

"I hadn't thought that I would be going to Hong Kong not for travel, but to take someone to court," says Ye, who had been offered 2,000 yuan compensation. His three-year-old son Ye Xi's medical expenses already exceed 10,000 yuan ($1,500).

The Hong Kong Small Claims Tribunal rejected their claims on May 27, saying, without any apparent irony, that judicial organization on the mainland was a better place to deal with the issue.

"The whole legal battle is a mental torture for us," Ye says. "None of the things we demanded have been achieved. We broke down in tears many times since the scandal, but no difficulty can stop us."

It's not just legal channels that are blocked.

Sinister silencing

Parents say they come under constant pressure whenever they talk to the media or post stories about their plight on the Internet. Whenever she makes an online post, Jiang says, people claiming to be representatives of government officials tell her the government is dealing with the matter and ask her not to post any more stories.

"But they just say empty words," she says. "So far there is no follow-up action taken. They just want me to shut up."

The lawyer Peng says parents may have to return to Hong Kong to seek justice on the mainland. He's confident the parents' situation will improve, but not necessarily through legal means.

"If we fail at all legal battles, we will liaise with some charity groups to see how we can take care of the victims," he says.

"I feel sad every day," Zhou says, "but I won't give up on making a better life for my son. We now allow these miserable children to deteriorate at home … We should be responsible for the life of these children and stop them from going down. I hope people will be concerned about these children or otherwise, we may suffer similar scandals in the future. I beg you for your support."

April 21, 2004

At least 13 babies die in Anhui Province die after being fed pirated Sanlu milk powder with no nutritional value, according to state media reports. More than 170 other malnourished victims, dubbed "big headed babies" as their heads swell while their bodies waste away, are affected.

March 2008

Sanlu receives customer complaints that babies' urine is discolored and some have been admitted to hospital. Company officials say they investigated and recalled some products at this time, but did not inform the government.

May 2008

Five-month old boy dies in northwestern Gansu Province in what is later said to be first fatality linked to melamine-tainted milk.

May 20, 2008

An Internet user named 789oo88oo88 writes in an online forum that his daughter had urinary problems after drinking Sanlu milk, but he later deletes the post after Sanlu compensates him with 2,477 yuan.

July 2008

Eight-month old girl dies after her parents remove her from hospital in second death later linked to the powder.

August 2, 2008

Sanlu starts recall from suppliers. Fonterra says it first learnt of problem in August.

September 5, 2008

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is informed of milk powder problem. Three days later, New Zealand officials are ordered to bypass local officials and inform Chinese government.

September 8, 2008

Fourteen children in Minxian county, Gansu Province, suffer kidney stone problems.

September 10, 2008

First Chinese media reports that babies have fallen ill after drinking Sanlu milk formula.

September 11, 2008

Fifty-nine children suffer from kidney stone problems in Gansu Province.

September 11, 2008

Sanlu declares the sickness of Gansu children is not related to their product.

September 11, 2008

Sanlu says milk powder produced before August 6, 2008 is contaminated with melamine. The company recalls the product.

September 12, 2008

Sanlu says dairy farmers illegally added melamine to the milk powder.

September 13, 2008

The State Council activates an emergency response.

September 16, 2008

Milk powder from 22 diary companies is found to have been contaminated with melamine.

September 19, 2008

Dairy products from Yili, Mengniu and Guangming are also found contaminated.

September 22, 2008

Li Changjiang, the head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine responsible for milk safety, resigns.

January 22, 2009

Sanlu former head Tian Wenhua is sentenced to life imprisonment. The company's senior management of Wang Yuliang, Hang Zhiji and Wu Jusheng are sentenced to imprisonment of between five and 15 years. Dairy farmers Zhang Yujun, Gao Junjie and Geng Jinping are sentenced to death.

November 24, 2009

Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping are executed.

December 2009

Li Changjiang is appointed deputy head of an anti-vice team.

December 21, 2009

Zhao Lianhai charged with inciting social disorder

December 31, 2009

Melamine level of products made by Shanghai Panda found to exceed national limit.

November 10, 2010

Zhao Lianhai sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment by a Beijing court.

November 22, 2010

Zhao Lianhai reportedly abandons appeal, applies for medical parole.

Fast facts:

Courts that accepted registration.

Date Courts Status

March 25, 2009

Xinhua District Court in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province No hearing held

July 2009

Xicheng District Court, Beijing No hearing held

July 2009

Daxing District Court, Beijing No hearing held

June 2009

Shunyi District People's Court, Beijing Trial on Nov 27
Verdict never given

November 2009

Xuanwu District Court, Beijing Yili compensated the victim 30,000 yuan in May 2010

August 2010

Hailin People's Court, Heilongjiang Province Yili compensated the victim 20,000 yuan in Sep 2010

September 2010

People's Court of Tongshan county, Hubei Province No hearing held

October 2010

Xigu District Court, Lanzhou, Gansu Province Moved to Jinan Court, Shandong Province. No hearing held.

November 2010

Shenzhou People's Court, Zhejiang Province Moved to another court. No hearing held.

asiasentinel.com

silly question maybe but
why can't they target the people who manufacture melimine.
where does it come from ?

Originally Posted by billy the kid

why can't they target the people who manufacture melimine. where does it come from ?

Melamine is a raw material used in the chemical industry. It is a completely legitimate product. It should however not get into the food chain.

BTW at present I almost wish we had the death penalty here in Germany. There is a huge scandal about eggs containing Dioxin. Some mad chicken food producer has mixed fatty acids that were intended for lubricant production into the chicken feed. This fat was contaminated with Dioxin.

The level does exceed the legal limits for food only in few cases and is not actually dangerous. If they are allowed back into the market I would cheerfully eat those eggs (unlike many others who go hysteric about it).

But still I would like to see those responsible dead. They did it out of greed and may ruin many farmers who cannot sell their products now.

I understand it was a Dutch feed producer that used fatty oils meant as an industrial oil lubricant.
The feed may have been sold all over Europe, not just to Germany.

Originally Posted by Bower

I understand it was a Dutch feed producer that used fatty oils meant as an industrial oil lubricant. The feed may have been sold all over Europe, not just to Germany.

No it is a german producer. They have bought that fatty acid from a Dutch manufacturer. But for technical lubricants it is a legitimate product just like the Chinese melamin. Both should never enter the food chain but there the manufacturers of food/feed that buy and use them are to blame.

New Milk Scandal Surfaces in Suzhou
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service and by Lin Jing for the Cantonese Service.
Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2013-03-29


A woman shops for milk powder at a supermarket in Nanjing on March 29, 2013.
AFP

Authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou have uncovered a fresh infant milk powder scandal in which a company was selling fake imported baby milk to cater to massive demand for foreign brands among worried parents, official media reported.

The Suzhou-based Hero Import and Export (Suzhou) Co. is under investigation following allegations that its Netherlands-branded "Hero" baby milk came from a number of unidentified sources, state television reported via a weekly consumer show this week.

The news has sparked outrage among Chinese netizens and further fears of contamination among worried parents.

"I am so angry!" wrote a user identified as @hetaoxiaopengyouer on a Twitter-like microblogging service. "That is the exact same brand our baby drinks, and they swore blind it was totally imported."

User @xintaibeipinghele wasn't surprised at the news, however. "Things like this happen all the time in a shameless, lawless, immoral, and godless country like ours."

Xing Zhihong, whose child was made sick by melamine-tainted infant formula made by Sanlu in a nationwide scandal that first came to light in 2008, called for severe punishment of those responsible.

"Of course I'm annoyed; of course this isn't right," Xing said. "What they did was against the law."

"At this stage of life, the babies are growing, and it will affect every part of their bodies; their internal organs, everywhere," she said.

"They shouldn't just be severely punished; they should be severely punished according to the law."

Sold after investigation

Media reports revealed that the milk powder, which carried the "Hero" logo under the brand name Meisu Li'er, had continued to be sold across Suzhou in spite of an investigation into quality issues that started last November.

The products weren't removed from shelves until this month, sparking further anger among netizens.

"Why didn't they remove it from the shelves when they were investigating it?" commented microblogger @qianjinzhongdefeidongwenguangxin.

"How many innocent children have been harmed by this milk powder? The irresponsible way in which the relevant department acted is also a problem."

An employee who answered the phone at the Suzhou municipal government's quality control bureau hotline was unable to give any information about the product, however.

Meanwhile, an employee who answered the phone at a supermarket in Suzhou's Changning district said the shop had stopped selling the brand.

"It has all been taken away. We aren't selling it any more," the employee said.

Poor controls

Beijing-based lawyer Li Fangping said the local quality control officials had managed the case very poorly.

"If they already knew, and had already failed [the milk powder] in quality control tests, then the commerce and industry departments should order a product recall, or put it in sealed storage," Li said.

Li said part of the problem lay in a lack of communication between different departments and agencies at the same level of government.

"They need a connected system that informs people automatically," he said.

An estimated 300,000 children were made ill by infant formula milk laced with the industrial chemical melamine in a scandal that first broke in September 2008.

Chinese officials said recently that 99 percent of home-produced infant formula milk passes quality standards.

But activist Jiang Yalin, who founded the charity group Kidney Stone Babies, said there had been no improvement in quality standards since the melamine scandal.

"This was something that first came out in November, but they didn't take any action whatsoever, and the goods kept entering the marketplace," she said.

"Anything these regulatory agencies do has to be regarded with suspicion."

rfa.org