Milk Contamination Scandal Goes to Trial
By Gerri L. Elder
In Shanghai, China, the state-run news media has reported
that the former chairperson of one of the largest dairy producers in China has
pleaded guilty to selling tainted powdered baby formula.
The
New York Times reported that with her guilty plea, Tian Wenhua
acknowledged for the first time that the company knew of the problem months
before local officials were alerted.
If convicted, Ms. Tian could face life in prison or
execution. She is one of the highest-ranking
corporate executives to go on trial in China.
The tainted baby formula has become one of China's most
troubling food-safety crises. The
scandal became public in September after melamine discovered in the formula
caused approximately 300,000 children to become ill and six to die.
Since September, investigators discovered that the problem
of watered-down milk being deliberately contaminated with melamine was
widespread. This discovery led to global
recalls of suspected defective
products from China.
Melamine, a chemical used in plastics and fertilizers, was
used to falsely raise the protein counts in the watered-down milk. The chemical can cause kidney stones or other
medical problems and can lead to death when ingested.
The melamine scandal follows several other problems in
China's food and drug industries and has devastated the dairy industry
there.
Sanlu and other Chinese companies are accused of failing to
monitor the quality of the powdered baby formula they produced. The government has accused some of the
companies of concealing and covering up the fact that the baby formula
contained high levels of melamine.
Ms. Tian pleaded guilty on the first day of a trial that
includes three other former Sanlu executives.
During the trial, the court said that consumer complaints
about the company's milk were made as early as December 2007. Ms. Tian reportedly admitted that she knew by
May 2008 that the company was selling contaminated baby formula; however, she
did not report the problem to government officials until August.
Prior to Ms. Tian's testimony, Sanlu officials had insisted
that they were not aware of the contamination until August.
Sanlu stopped production in September, but the damage was
already done. Prosecutors say that
between May and September the company produced more than 900 tons of baby
formula that was contaminated with melamine.
In August, executives at the Fonterra Group of New Zealand,
a company that owns a large share of Sanlu, said that they became aware of the
melamine contamination and pushed the milk company to issue a recall. Sanlu filed bankruptcy in December.
The parents of the children who became ill and died after
drinking the melamine-contaminated milk have been offered compensation for
their children's pain and suffering.
The milk companies have offered 1.1 billion Yuan ($160
million) to families for the melamine contamination, which amounts to the
children who suffered from kidney stones receiving $290, sicker children
receiving up to $4,380 and the families of the deceased children receiving
$29,000 each.
The families of the sick and deceased children have rejected
the offer and plan to file a civil
lawsuit against the milk companies for the illnesses and deaths caused by
the contaminated milk. Total Injury will provide news updates on this food contamination story as it develops.
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