Milk from China

Picked from BBC.co.uk

At Sanlu's headquarters, in the grimy city of Shijiazhuang, most of the signs have been removed from company buildings.
The large Chinese characters are missing; only the skeletal frame remains.
But the company slogan still stands tall. "Make quality milk products, serve the people", it proclaims in Chinese and English.
Sanlu, and its executives, failed on both counts.

Court papers showed that the company first began receiving complaints of children becoming sick after drinking its milk, back in December 2007.
Sanlu was slow to react, but by May 2008 it knew the milk it was selling was poisonous. Still the milk kept flowing, and it was only until the company's foreign partner blew the whistle that production stopped, and the arrests started.

Parents were horrified. Sanlu was one of the country's most trusted brands - its pack came with an official seal of approval.
Some 300,000 children became sick, and at least six died, because of kidney stones and complications, caused by the toxic chemical melamine. As the scale of the problem became apparent, anger spread.

It was only four years since the last baby-milk scandal, when at least 13 children died after being fed fake baby powder that had no nutritional value. They died of malnutrition - their swollen bellies disguising that they were starving to death.
Then, as now, the government promised action, and pledged that such a thing would never happen again.

Even with today's verdicts - two sentenced to death and Sanlu's boss imprisoned for life - few parents feel that justice has been done.


Liu Donglin, the father of one child made sick from drinking contaminated milk, said: "They got the penalty they deserved, but I feel sorry about this whole affair.

"I think they are scapegoats. The milk producers' association and the people in charge of checking the milk should also be punished."
It emerged that melamine was being added routinely to milk across China. And it wasn't just Sanlu - in all, 22 companies were selling contaminated milk.
But not a single government official or health inspector has been charged with wrongdoing. And only Sanlu's executives have been prosecuted.

The scandal led to product recalls across the globe, and further damaged China's reputation for producing safe and reliable products.