Chinese authorities announced a nationwide probe yesterday into a milk powder suspected of killing one baby and sickening dozens of others, in the latest safety scandal to rock China’s food industry.
China’s health ministry also ordered all its departments nationwide to immediately report every baby with kidney stones and problems urinating, symptoms of drinking the tainted milk formula.
One baby has died and many others have been hospitalized across the country after drinking the Sanlu brand of milk powder and developing the kidney stones, the ministry said on its Web site as it announced a national probe.
“A joint inter-ministerial team has been set up to investigate responsibility and strictly deal with those responsible,” the ministry said of the team composed of police, health, commercial and drug agencies.
Guidelines on how to treat infants suffering from the tainted formula were also issued by the ministry.
The ministry late on Thursday ordered parents not to feed their babies the Sanlu milk powder, but it did not ban the milk product from being sold.
It also notified the World Health Organization (WHO), which said it was monitoring the situation and helping the Chinese government deal with it.
Sanlu has acknowledged that some of its milk powder was contaminated by the chemical tripolycyanamide, which can cause kidney stones, the ministry said.
Tripolycyanamide, also known as melamine, is a chemical used in plastics that was at the center of a China-produced pet food recall in the US last year.
At least 59 babies have developed kidney stones in the northwestern province of Gansu alone, which is also where the fatality occurred, while seven other provinces and regions around the country have discovered similar cases.
The health ministry said the Sanlu Group had ordered the recall of 700 tonnes of the baby milk powder produced before Aug. 6, after internal company investigations shoawed the formula had been contaminated.
The group is a leading state-owned dairy company based in northern China’s Hebei Province that had plans to list on the Shanghai stock exchange this year.
The public relations office at the company did not answer phone calls yesterday, while no notices about a recall or apologies were posted on its Web site.
The World Health Organization said the health ministry had informed it of the safety concerns.
“WHO is providing technical assistance to the Chinese authorities’ investigation when requested,” Hans Troedsson, WHO Representative in China, said in a statement. “We are monitoring the situation in China and for potential wider implications for other countries.”
It was not immediately clear if the suspect powder has been exported.
China has in recent years endured a series of high-profile safety scandals over its food and other products sold overseas as well as domestically.
Chinese exports of fish and dumplings as well as pet food have raised serious concerns in the US, Japan and elsewhere, leading to recalls of various products in those countries.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition