China's milk problem

China’s milk problem

Chicago Tribune: China’s rulers have long tried to control the flow of information within their borders. Some Internet sites remain off limits to their citizens. The media face restrictions on what they can report.

But sheer public outrage is proving to be too strong for the Chinese filters.

Melamine that was added to infant formula in China has sickened 53,000 babies there. Nearly 13,000 had to be hospitalized. Three have died. Those numbers are expected to rise.

This was not an accident. Melamine, normally found in plastics, is not meant for human consumption. Milk producers added it to their product to hike the protein content. They had to hike the protein because they had watered down their milk.

Corrupt act

That’s an astonishingly corrupt act. The same chemical was found in a pet food additive, imported from China, that sickened and killed animals last year in the United States.

China’s largest infant formula producer, the Sanlu company, got its first complaints about problems with the milk as far back as December 2007. But it didn’t tell the local government in the city of Shijiazhuang, where the company is based, about the problems until early August.

Now furious Chinese parents are demanding to know how this happened, and Chinese leaders are finding it difficult to hide behind a state wall of silence.

The internal protests and the world’s growing reluctance to trust Chinese products may turn out to be a watershed event.