Parents and doctors in central China fear that hormones in milk powder they fed their infant daughters have led the babies to prematurely develop breasts, state media reported yesterday.
Medical tests indicated the levels of hormones in three girls, ranging in age from four to 15 months and who were fed the same baby formula, exceeded those of the average adult woman, the China Daily reported.
“The amount of hormones in the babies definitely means there’s a problem,” Yang Qin (楊勤), the chief physician in the childcare department at the Hubei Maternity and Children’s Hospital, was quoted as saying. “The parents should stop using the formula to feed their children and the powder should be analyzed.”
Local food safety authorities however refused a parent’s request to investigate the formula made by Synutra, based in the eastern city of Qingdao, saying they do not conduct tests at consumers’ behest, the report said.
The suspected baby formula was still being sold in the Hubei provincial capital Wuhan — at discounted prices — and was still on store shelves in Beijing despite the concerns which surfaced last month, the Global Times said.
Synutra insisted that its products were safe.
“No manmade ‘hormones’ or any illegal substances were added during production,” it said in a statement.
The infants showed unusually high levels of the hormones estradiol and prolactin, the China Daily said.
Wang Dingmian (王丁棉), the former chairman of the dairy association in Guangdong Province, told the China Daily that the hormones could have entered the food chain when farmers reared the cattle.
“Since a regulation forbidding the use of hormones to cultivate livestock has yet to be drawn up in China, it would be lying to say nobody uses it,” Wang said.
Chinese dairy products were recalled worldwide in 2008 after it was revealed that melamine, which is used to make plastics, was widely and illegally added to the products to give the appearance of higher protein.
Melamine was found in the products of 22 Chinese dairy companies in a massive scandal.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS