China’s food safety crisis widened Friday after the industrial chemical melamine was found in milk produced by three of the country’s leading dairy companies — prompting stores, including Starbucks, to yank milk from their shelves.
The recalls come as evidence is mounting that adding chemicals to watered-down milk was a widespread practice in China’s dairy industry.
Sipping from a carton of milk at a news conference, the chief financial officer of one of the companies, Mengniu, apologized for the tainted milk. But he insisted only a small portion of the company’s inventory had been contaminated and said the tainted milk came from small-scale dairy farmers.
“Large-scale milk farms are very disciplined. They won’t take the risk to do something like that,” Yao Tongshan told reporters in Hong Kong.
The crisis was initially thought to have been confined to tainted milk powder, used to make baby formula that has been blamed in the deaths of four infants and for sickening 6,200 other children.
But tests found melamine in samples of liquid milk taken from China’s two largest dairy producers, Mengniu Dairy Group Co. and Yili Industrial Group Co., as well as Shanghai-based Bright Dairy. The chemical, which is used in plastics and fertilizers, can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure.
All batches that tested positive were being recalled, China’s product safety watchdog said in a report on its Web site. It pledged to “severely punish those who are responsible.”
Execution won’t help. Chinese businessmen feel the risk is worth the reward. They feel saving a few cents here and there makes them better businessmen. Bragging rights. Most simply don’t get the big picture.
And yes, it’s cultural. This has been the way of business for literally thousands of years.
Chinese businessmen, for the most part, aren’t as smart as many would like to think.
Melamine in dairy products now? Gangster capitalism at its best!
Plain and simple we went to China so that businesses in this country could get richer and make stock holders happy. We have two societies in America. People getting richer and people getting poorer. Even when business makes a bad decision the government will step in because they allowed it to go on for so long before doing anything that it simply has no choice.
Its sad that not only are we losing jobs to China, and buying China goods which helps our economy almost the least. But now China is supplying money in the form of loans to help us bail ourselves out??
THE CIRCLE completes itself!!
I bet the Dilbert cartoons are a huge hit among chinese engineers.
#1
That’s so sadly true…
I’ve followed the story from the beginning and without exception, the grassroots villains are the same sort who laced dog food products previously with melamine – roughly equivalent to the coop dealers in the West who aggregate milk from dairy farmers.
In the very first case, a family operation, in fact. Adding melamine bumps what appears to be protein levels = more valuable commodity.
2nd tier? Managers and corporate heads who refuse to institute simple testing procedures to ensure against this kind of sleaze.
Nothing that we didn’t go through – or the Brits or the French or most countries wending their way from a reasonably primitive agricultural economy to modern industrialism in what, under sixty years?
They’re still learning they have to have tax laws. Of course, the past couple of years, they realized they went overboard and have been raising the point at which you start to pay – and lowering the percentage paid. Unless you’re a millionaire.
Point being – none of that means anything to anyone outside of Westerners actually trying to do business in China. Americans don’t need to actually read anything or understand anything.
We can write off problems external to our borders as evil foreigners. We write off problems internal to our borders as “those people” – whoever that happens to be, this week: women, Blacks, university students, union members, musicians, movie stars, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, enviros and people who own high definition TV sets.
It’s easy to point fingers at China but when our own USDA can’t do a decent inspection job ether what are we left with. Buy it, eat it and hope you don’t get sick. Example: the USDA even interferes with companies trying to do better job.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/30/238223
I find this interesting, given that the Chinese generally don’t consume ANY dairy products. They are, however, perfectly happy to poison the rest of the world for a few bucks. Think about it. Have you ever, ever, seen any CHEESE in ANY Chinese food? Never. The Chinese will eat almost anything, dead or alive, but NEVER milk products or cheese. Ever been to Chinatown? Man, I don’t even RECOGNIZE most of the weird food stuff all those thousands of things that the Coolies are fighting over in the FDA condemned markets there! Every kind of creepy bug, slime, ooze and worm, dried things that could be from under rocks or from deep inside of manure piles, but no cheese, ice cream, coffee, hamburgers, milk, french fries, or anything else slightly American. And don’t even ask about the way the women dress in Chinatown. I wish I had the franchise on ugly purple sweaters with horrible patterns and clashing designs. Chinese people are Aliens from another planet. One with no cows.
@Digby
Not to rain on your racism parade but did you know that the majority of Asians are lactose intolerant? That means they lack the ability to digest dairy products efficiently. It can cause gastrointestinal distress and flatulence. Of course, that doesn’t excuse them from poisoning their customers.
No doubt this will all end with spilt milk
“This will all end with crying”
Wether it’s toys, milk or outsourced developers, as soon as you turn your back they’ll screw you over to save a buck.
I wonder if it was the communist rule that fostered a culture where constant supervision is a requirement.
China always hides stuff like this first for fear of losing face; yet when exposed, they really look stupid. How many more of these and similar debacles will they endure before finally reasoning that being open and honest is the better way to be honorable… wait, they’re emulating the American government. Nevermind…
#12, Shinderpal;
I realize they are “lactose-intolerant”. That does not invalidate my statement whatsoever. What are they doing with a dairy industry, if they don’t consume milk? Since none of them consume it, they don’t care what the hell is in it. And, a fact totally unrealized by liberals: stating the TRUTH does not constitute racism. I have an Asian girlfriend. She agrees with me on these points, and we laugh at the conditions and characters on Stockton St. all the time. Never eat there, though.
#9, chinatown rules;
You must be very wise to eat in an area totally infested with rats, mice, cockroaches, garbage can slime, and dirty hands. The SF Public Health Dept has totally given up on Chinatown. Jeez, don’t you look around? Dysentery, anyone? Ever notice the disgustingly BLACK filth-dripping garbage cans placed right next to the food? Ever see the delivery trucks with the dead things with flies buzzing around them? How about the way the shops place all the warm food out in the open for insects to crawl into to breed? I especially like the way the guys in the windows cut up all the dead things in their now-brown white aprons while smoking butts right down to the filter. Red bunting and ribbons can only hide so much. The place is filthy. Shopkeepers always run out and try to shoo me away when I show up with the TV camera.
[Eewwwwww! – ed.]
And some people insist we don’t need no steenking FDA!
Isn’t the worst part of this story the evident fact that it is cheaper to buy milk from China than from a farm 15 miles away?
Whatsup wit dat?
@Digby
“I realize they are “lactose-intolerant”. That does not invalidate my statement whatsoever. ”
Maybe, maybe not, but calling them “Coolies” makes you look like a racist idiot.
By the way, Canada currently has a contaminated meat scandal and Japan a tainted rice one. It’s not just a problem in China. Perhaps we should be taking a new look at these mass food production operations around the world.
Look for another Chinese factory to tragically burn to the ground.
I have a fear that 13 year old Chinese gymnast will tragically burn to the ground.
If it’s a food product, and it’s says “Product of China” on the label or it doesn’t indicate where it’s actually from, I do NOT buy it. I’m sure I get all my daily requirements of heavy metals, unknown industrial by products and whatnot just by breathing the goddamn air here in Atlanta. I don’t need any supplements, thank you!
i find the biggest travesty is that american companies aren’t buying american made products. Does it make sense if you own a coffee shop ( or chain ) of shops and get your milk from across the country when there are local farmers , and dont forget stories like this. Money isn’t everything
Yeah, saving pennies on tainted cheap milk doesn’t mean shit when it kills you.
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