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China orders milk products off shelves

— Photo: Xinhua

Help at hand: Children wait for medical check-up at a hospital in Lanzhou, capital of China’s Gansu Province, on Thursday. To ensure effective treatment for babies diagnosed with kidney diseases, eight hospitals in Gansu opened “express channels” for babies affected by the melamine-contaminated milk powder.

BEIJING: China sought on Saturday to shore up public confidence weakened by a milk safety scandal, with President Hu Jintao pulling up officials for negligence and government agencies promising adequate supplies of uncontaminated milk.

Many leading brands of powdered and liquid milk and other dairy products have been pulled from store shelves after infant formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine sickened more than 6,200 children and left four dead.

The Ministry of Health ordered all 31 provinces and major cities to set up separate 24-hour crisis hot lines to meet surging calls and help arrange care for the sick.

The order followed a barrage of instructions on Friday from the State Council, China’s Cabinet, requiring hospitals to provide free medical care.

To further calm public jitters, the top economic agencies promised to monitor markets for supply disruptions and for any price-gouging in sales of powdered milk — a staple in rural China. “Market supplies of powdered milk not tainted with melamine are sufficient,” the Xinhua News Agency quoted the Commerce Ministry as saying.

Newspapers and China Central Television ran lists of brands and products that were cleared of safety violations and deemed safe.

In Beijing and Shanghai, grocery stores where dairy sections were emptied by recalls on Friday displayed thinly stocked shelves of milk by Saturday, mostly imported or from the China operations of Nestle SA and other foreign-owned dairies.

The government is now coping with an apparent cover-up by local officials and being forced to rebuild public trust.

“Some officials have ignored public opinion and turned a blind eye to people’s hardships, even on major problems that affect people’s lives and safety,” said Mr. Hu in a speech on Friday to senior party members.

“We must learn a painful lesson,” he added.

Though he did not directly mention the contaminated milk and the comment was but a part of a wide-ranging policy speech, the quote was prominently reported by state media.

In recent days tests by government inspectors found melamine in powdered and liquid milk samples from 22 dairy companies, including industry titans like Yili, Mengniu Dairy Group Co., thus prompting the recalls.

Melamine is a chemical used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen.

When added to milk, tests register the melamine’s nitrogen as protein. Though health experts believe ingesting minute amounts poses no danger, melamine can cause kidney stones, which can lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable.

The company at the heart of the scandal, Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group, received complaints about its infant milk formula as early as March, and local officials were notified in early August at the latest.

Suppliers, squeezed by higher costs for fertilizer, feed, gas and labour, are believed to have turned to melamine to cover up the fact that milk was being watered down to make more money.

A Vice-Governor of Hebei, where Sanlu is based, told reporters this past week that two suppliers detained this month admitted they had been adding melamine to milk for three years. — AP

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