China Reports Fake Milk Killed Infants
April 20, 2004 06:34 AM EDT
SHANGHAI, China - Dozens of infants in eastern China have died from
malnutrition from drinking fake milk formula with virtually no nutritional
value, state media reported Tuesday.
The widely reported deaths prompted demands from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
for a "thorough investigation and severe punishment" of the formula's
manufacturers, according to the Web site of the official China Daily and
other media.
The State Food and Drug Administration sent an investigation team to the
impoverished inland province of Anhui on Monday to trace the origin of the
formula and find those responsible, the reports said.
Up to 200 babies who were fed the formula developed what doctors
called "big head disease," causing the infants' heads to grow abnormally
large while their bodies wasted away. Some babies died within three days of
being fed the formula, while others were hospitalized after parents
discovered their children were sick.
The reports said that from April last year, about 50 to 60 infants died
from malnutrition after being fed the formula. That number could rise once
investigations are completed, the reports said.
The government's tough action underscores its sensitivity over the rampant -
and sometimes dangerous - piracy of products, from brake pads to alcohol
to medicine. Chinese with little money and understanding of the risks are
the most common victims.
The fake formula was purchased from shops in Fuyang, a city in Anhui where
farmers scrape by on incomes of about $240 a year.
In some formula the protein accounted for a mere one-hundredth of the total
amount, or about one-eighteenth of the standard content, said a specialist
with the Fuyang Health Department's Food Supervision Bureau. Important
minerals such as iron and zinc were completely missing, said the
specialist, who declined to give her name.
She said the cheats had taken advantage of rural consumers' naivete about
health and consumer issues.
"Rural people are very vulnerable. They don't ask for receipts, don't
suspect the authenticity of products and are more liable to be cheated,"
she said.
Approval seals and other documentation on packaging was usually false, she
said. Letters to manufacturers were returned because they invented
addresses listed on packaging, she said.
Local officials who raided markets in Fuyang over the weekend seized
thousands of bags of suspect formula, including products without health
board approval stamps or those that had passed their use-by date. Most
listed factory addresses far from Anhui, reports said.
Inspectors recorded at least three dozen different brands of fake formula,
the reports said. One, Aumeng Brand, purportedly from the northeastern
province of Heilongjiang, sold for just $1 a bag, but contained just one-
sixth the standard protein content, according to the official Xinhua News
Agency.
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