Milk formula.  For non-breastfeeding mothers, milk formula are supposedly a child’s staple from 0-6 months of life and can even extend to grown-up years.

But what is a mother to do if she found out that the supposed “basic food staple” of her child is tainted with a kidney stone-causing substance that might eventually put her child’s health at risk?

Over the last few days, news reports have been circulating about the outrage in China over the alleged contamination of melamine in the milk formula manufactured by the San Lu Group.  Melamine, a chemical substance used for manufacturing plasticwares , is a toxin linked to development of kidney stones in about 1,200 babies and the death of at least two babies in China. (As of this writing though, China Health Minister Chen Zhut reported that a third baby already died of the same cause.)

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According to the 17th September post in chinaSmack, a website that attempts to share a “slice of Chinese life”, Sanlu initially claimed that their products have repeatedly past quality tests, meet national quality standards, and the sick babies must have been fed counterfeit milk powder that used their brand name. However, last night, the Ministry of Health pointed out that there is suspicion of melamine contamination last night. Melamine can be added to make food products appear to have more protein.

Minutes after the government announcement, Sanlu issued a recall of 700 tons of milk powder. They said they wanted to be responsible to their consumers, and also claimed that a self-inspection showed melamine contamination for all milk powder produced before August 6th.

In 2007, melamine was also the cause of the bad pet food. Some Chinese netizens have commented that now Chinese lives are worth less than the lives of American dogs and cats.

Sanlu is now blaming peasant milk farmers who provide the company with milk. Police have begun arresting milk farmers. However, many Chinese do not believe this. They wonder how can farmers know how to use melamine or how can this problem affect all of their milk powder and not just some of it. (ChinaSmack)

This issue of national concern have already escalated and there seems to be a never-ending debate on who is to blame: Government food safety supervision is incompetent. Sanlu, the company itself, has a serious problem.  There were even reports that the Reports from Beijing said reasons for the delay were unclear, but speculation abounded that China’s authorities blew up the milk controversy just to cover up the issues hounding the Beijing Olympics.

Tsk. Tsk.

(Image from http://www.chinasmack.com)