Toxic milk scandal leads to arrests in China

16 September 2008

As China's health ministry announced that a second baby had died after being fed contaminated milk powder, public anger increased at revelations that Chinese local authorities had ignored warnings by the New Zealand-based minority Sanlu shareholder Fonterra about the adulteration, but had refused to recall the product.

The milk powder was mixed with the chemical – melamine, which is rich in nitrogen and is often measured as an indicator of protein levels. But the chemical can have serious health effects on humans. It is widely used in making plastics and fertilisers and has been used by Chinese businesses to artificially boost protein readings in animal feed and other food products.

The toxic chemical takes on the appearance of protein and can mislead testers in believing that the milk product has a higher nutritional content than it actually has. Suppliers who sold the raw milk apparently added the chemical so that it would be passed by food inspectors.

Most of the infants suffered from problems related to stones in the kidney. Post mortem reports of a child who succumbed revealed that the product had been consumed over a period of time.(See: FDA warns ethnic Chinese communities against illegal Chinese baby formula)

Scientists have cautioned that removing kidney stones of the affected babies would not solve the problem completely as smaller stones may still be located in the renal tubules in the kidneys, which could affect the renal functioning, requiring long-term monitoring.

Hundreds of concerned parents queued outside Sanlu, demanding explanations and compensation. Under Chinese law, couples can have only one child and parents are worried about the long-term health effects that their children could suffer after consuming the milk contaminated with the toxic chemical.