China: Milk Scandal Of Unexpected Dimension

[suchandra]

China suffers so badly from milk shortage that since years there's only adulterated milk for sale. Now some foreign journalists report about this scandal - thousands of children who were fed fake milk are of bad health. As mentioned earlier, Buddhism combined with cow killing is not tolerated by the devas. And China's newspapers threatened by the government to report about this nation wide milk scandal.

 

China: Milk Scandal Of Unexpected Dimension

http://vweb.youth.cn/cms/2006/gjpd/news/china/200809/t20080918_793820.htm

 

2008-09-18 11:03:00 <table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="98%"><tbody><tr><td class="td4" align="center">

</td></tr><tr><td class="td4" align="left">In the wake of the contaminated baby milk powder scandal, Chinese quality watchdog on Wednesday cancelled all kinds of national inspection exemptions previously given to food producers.

 

"Considering the particular characteristics of food products and the complexity in the cause of food safety problems, and with a view to further enhancing supervision over food producers, ensuring food safety and protecting consumers' interests," said the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) in an explanation of the move.

It said relevant companies must stop activities of publicizing their national inspection exemption qualifications. The national inspection exemption labels printed on food products and their packages became invalid from Wednesday.

To help companies avoid repeated examinations and reduce their burden, the country began exempting those producing top-quality and globally-competitive products from quality inspections in 2000.

According to previous regulations, any company in China could apply for the inspection-exemption if they had a long standing quality record, large market share, and implemented standards up to or above national or international levels.

The products that passed state or province-level inspections on three consecutive occasions were awarded the qualification. While producers still must report the inspection-free products' quality status on a regular basis, AQSIQ organized spot checks on these products annually.

Before the move, AQSIQ had cancelled the exemption qualification of Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group and the "Famous Brand" titles of its baby milk powder, other kinds of milk powder and sterilized milk.

It was amending quality standards of dairy products targeting non-food additives. It would adjust its baby formula standards to allow tests of poisonous substances such as melamine.

No melamine tests were conducted on dairy products in the past. New standards would be published later this year, AQSIQ said.

 

The country's Certification and Accreditation Administration also said on Wednesday it revoked all certificates given to Sanlu and its products, including the sanitation registration qualification of food for export.

The government on Wednesday announced comprehensive nationwide tests for melamine on every dairy product by every producer after a third infant died after drinking contaminated milk powder.

The latest fatality occurred in the southeastern Zhejiang Province, Minister of Health Chen Zhu told a press conference in Beijing. He gave no further information about the latest fatality.

The first two deaths both occurred in northwest Gansu Province. A five-month-old boy died on May 1 and an eight-month-old girl succumbed on July 22.

Both were fed with Sanlu formula and had suffered kidney failure

Another 6,244 infants were ill after consuming the tainted formula as of 8 a.m. on Wednesday, including 158 with acute kidney failure, of which 94 were in stable condition, Chen said.

Inspectors had found the chemical in 69 batches of baby milk powder produced by 22 companies nationwide. The seized items included such well-known brands as Sanlu, Mengniu, Yili and Yashili, among others.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce, which supervises product quality at the retail level, on Wednesday ordered all the tainted products to be immediately removed from shelves.

The contaminated products were to be sealed at the site and kept from re-entering the market.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra, which owns a 43-percent stake in Sanlu, said on Tuesday its own Chinese business had voluntarily recalled one batch of Anmum Materna milk.

The company said the particular batch had been manufactured and distributed under licence by Sanlu using what it believed to be contaminated local raw milk.

Melamine is a toxic chemical, banned in food. It is rich in nitrogen and was illegally added to raw milk for protein tests that raise nitrogen levels.

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[bija]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/09/200892034653278312.html

<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="DetaildTitleGolden" valign="top">Asian states ban Chinese milk goods </td> </tr> <tr> <td height="5"> <!---->

</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"> <table style="display: inline;" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td style="height: 14px;" valign="top" width="100%" align="right">

<table style="width: 33px; border-collapse: collapse;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">Tainted milk powder has killed four babies and made more than 6,000 sick [AFP]</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> Malaysia has joined Singapore in banning the import of all Chinese dairy products after China's contaminated-milk scare widened.

Malaysia imposed the ban on all baby milk formulas, milk and milk products from China on Saturday, a day after Singapore initiated a similiar move.

Four babies have died, nearly 160 have suffered acute kidney failure and more than 6,000 have suffered illness after drinking products containing melamine.

The moves came after it was revealed three of China's biggest dairy firms sold milk contaminated with the chemical.

The chemical is used to make industrial products and plastics but can also be added to milk to make it appear to have a higher protein content.

In the United States, inspections have been stepped up at ports on shipments of bulk food ingredients from Asia that are derived from milk.

Shelves emptied

The US Food and Drug Administration warned consumers on Saturday not to buy milk products from China over the Internet.

<table width="180" align="right" border="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="FormsText" style="border: 1px solid rgb(182, 136, 9); height: 20px; background-color: rgb(182, 136, 9);">Melamine</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="background-color: rgb(223, 210, 173);"> Chinese authorities say melamine was put into the milk powder to make it appear the product had more protein.

The chemical, normally used to make plastics and glues, is rich in nitrogen, an element often used to measure protein levels, and so can be used to disguise diluted milk.

It is being blamed for causing kidney stones in the affected babies, a condition that is rare in infants but which causes a range of health risks.

</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Grocery stores across China continued to remove milk and other dairy products from shelves on Saturday. In Beijing and Shanghai, the dairy sections of many stores were empty, a day after health officials said the scare, which had initially affected only baby formula, had spread to liquid milk, ice-cream and yoghurt.

A senior dairy analyst told the AP news agency Chinese farmers were cutting corners to cope with the rising costs of feed and labour.

Chen Lianfang, an agribusiness consultant, said: "Before the melamine incident, I know they could have been adding organic stuff, say animal urine or skin - basically, anything that can boost the protein reading."

But he and others expressed scepticism that so many farmers would know to add melamine to milk.

"The chemical is not water-soluble and must be mixed with formaldehyde or another chemical before it can be dissolved in milk.

"Farmers can't be well-educated enough to think of melamine ... There must be people from chemical companies contacting them and telling them it's a good idea," Chen said.

Product recall

The Chinese government has said it will introduce a new food monitoring system in response to the crisis - the latest in a series of safety scandals to rock China's food and manufacturing industries.

The government's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said tests showed nearly 10 per cent of samples taken from Mengniu Dairy Group and Yili Industrial Group - China's two largest dairy companies - contained melamine.

A third firm, the Shanghai-based Bright Dairy, has also been found to have sold contaminated products.

In Hong Kong, the authorities ordered a recall after China-made dairy products sold there were found to contain the toxin.

Al Jazeera's Laura Kyle, reporting from Beijing, said the scale of the scandal and fallout could be far wider than initially thought, with possibly tens of thousands of people affected.

Coffee chain Starbucks has already pulled milk supplied by Mengniu from its more than 300 cafes in mainland China.

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[bija]

13,000 hospitalised in China milk scare

 

China says nearly 13,000 children are in hospital after drinking toxic milk powder in a dramatic escalation of Beijing's latest safety scandal.

As the World Health Organisation questioned Beijing's handling of the crisis, premier Wen Jiabao appeared on state television promising to head off further incidents.

VIDEO: China vows to save milk victims

But a Hong Kong toddler also became the first child affected outside the mainland and more countries moved to bar Chinese milk products.

Over 100 babies seriously ill

The health ministry said 12,892 infants were in hospital with 104 babies in serious condition, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

About 1,579 babies had been "cured" and discharged, the ministry said, adding that hospitals nationwide had seen almost 40,000. At least four children have died from drinking poisonous baby formula.

Swiss food giant Nestle said it's "confident" its products in China are safe, after media reports suggested they were laced with the chemical.

"Following press reports in Hong Kong earlier today claiming that traces of melamine had been found in a Nestle growing-up milk, Nestle is confident that none of its products in China is made from milk adulterated with melamine," the group said in a statement.

Media reports had claimed that Neslac Gold 1+ might be affected, Nestle said, but it pointed out that the Hong Kong government's food safety department had declared that the product was safe.

Chemical melamine added

The scandal stems from the practice of adding industrial chemical melamine, normally used to make plastics, to watered-down milk to boost apparent protein levels.

Melamine, which causes urinary problems including kidney stones, was first discovered in baby formula and then in liquid milk, yoghurt and ice-cream, leading to mass recalls.

The problem first came to light last week in state-controlled media but New Zealand dairy Fonterra, which has a joint venture with China's Sanlu, has said it knew for weeks and had been pushing for a recall.

Some Chinese press reports have said the scam had been going on for years, with the country's chaotic and corrupt food safety system unable to detect or prevent it.

'Internal communication issues'

Shigeru Omi, Western Pacific director of the UN's WHO, on Sunday raised concerns the matter was not reported earlier.

"Evidently there is also a problem with internal communication," Omi told a news conference in Manila.

"It seems people already knew of this problem for some time and did not share this information."

With Brunei, Bangladesh and Burundi becoming the latest countries to bar Chinese milk products, Wen pledged to put an end to the long line of safety scares.

"What we want to do now is prevent this happening again, not just with milk products, but with all foods," he said.

"We want to prevent similar incidents occurring so that the common people can eat in peace."

China has endured a litany of scandals in recent years over dangerous products including food, drugs and toys, many of which were exported, dealing a blow to its manufacturing reputation.

Last year, melamine was found in exports of Chinese pet food which killed cats and dogs in the United States.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's government said a three-year-old girl developed a kidney stone after drinking Chinese milk powder but she has left hospital and is in good condition.

Burundi became the third African country to bar Chinese milk products after Gabon and Tanzania, while Brunei joined neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh in freezing imports.

A Japanese company is recalling thousands of buns made with Chinese milk, fearing contamination. Eighteen people have been arrested in China over the scandal, state media have said.

[suchandra]

Looks like it is all about powdered milk.

 

 

 

Harikeśa: They have powdered milk.

Prabhupāda: That is simply cheating, powdered milk. It is white water, that’s all. Powdered milk means white water. It has no value.

Haṁsadūta: In Moscow too, Anand Shanti, he was telling. When we were there we wanted to buy milk, and they had milk in bottles, but he told me, he said, “This is not milk.” He said “First they dehydrate it, make it to powder. Then they again add water and put it in the bottle, because in this way they can keep it a long time.” So we couldn’t find any real milk even in Moscow, the biggest city in the country.

Prabhupāda: I think Moscow they have milk and butter.

Haṁsadūta: At least when I was there we couldn’t find any.

Prabhupāda: Oh, then finished. All cows finished, cutting throat.

Haṁsadūta: Butter they have, but it’s not very good quality.

Prabhupāda: Hm. Adulterate. I thought at least they have got little milk and butter, but that is also finished. [break]

Tejās: …the milkman tries to bring the cow to the āśrama, they arrest the milkman. They take his cow away from him. They don’t even allow that they can bring the cow to the people any more. They seized. He lost one cow. He has to sneak the cow down the back alley so that they can bring some cow fodder in.

Prabhupāda: [break] …zation will collapse very soon, all over the world. It will collapse. Either you may bring this ism or that ism, this civilization will collapse. People will become mad, being harassed in so many ways. When one is harassed in so many problems, he commits suicide. So that position is coming.

 

 

Morning Walk Conversation

with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

November 29, 1975, Delhi

 

 

Prabhupāda: It is very cheating. Any powdered spice is not good.

Harikeśa: Asafoetida also.

Prabhupāda: Everything. As soon as it is powder, they will mix with all rubbish things. And it is very easy to cheat you. You are susceptible for being cheated. So they take advantage and cheat you. So best thing is to import spices from India whole and either get it powdered or during time of cooking you make them paste. That is first class.

 

 

Morning Walk Conversation

with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

July 1, 1975, Denver

[bhaktajan]

Nearly 53,000 Children Sickened by Milk

BEIJING (Sept. 22) - The head of China's product quality watchdog resigned Monday in the wake of the tainted baby formula scandal that has sickened nearly 53,000 infants, highlighting a breakdown in the country's food safety system only a year after a major overhaul.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Li Changjiang stepped down with the approval of China's Cabinet.

Li's agency is responsible for ensuring that <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com<st1:place w:st=" /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s food supply chain is safe. His resignation comes after the industrial chemical melamine was blamed for causing kidney stones and kidney failure in babies.

The chemical was found in infant formula and other milk products from 22 of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s dairy companies.

Xinhua said Wang Yong had replaced Li as the director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Although Xinhua said only that Li had resigned after infants had become sick after taking tainted milk products, the widespread nature of the crisis reflects a systemic breakdown in supervision of the dairy industry.

It was only a year ago that China's product safety system was overhauled with new regulations and procedures to try to restore consumer confidence and preserve export markets after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.

In an indication of <st1:City w:st="on">Beijing</st1:City>'s determination to improve product safety, the government executed the disgraced chief of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s food and drug agency, who was convicted of accepting bribes in exchange for letting fake medicine into the domestic market.

The latest crisis indicated that problems were still slipping through the cracks, however. The crisis comes just one month after the Beijing Olympics, which the government wanted to use, in part, to prove to the world that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region> was capable of setting a new standard for food safety.

The discovery of the tainted milk is especially damaging because Sanlu Group Co., the company at the heart of the scandal, is <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place>'s biggest producer of powdered milk and such large companies are expected to act as industry role models for safety and quality.

Infant formula and other milk products have been pulled from stores around the country and Chinese imports from liquid milk to instant coffee mix to milk-based candy have been banned around <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place>.

On Monday the World Health Organization demanded stricter monitoring of the industry.

Sanlu Group Co., the dairy at the center of the scandal, and several other leading companies found to have tainted milk had been given inspection-free status by <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s product quality watchdog.

That privilege has since been rescinded, but WHO China representative Hans Troedsson stressed it was only a first step and that quality issues can crop up at any point in the supply chain, from the farm to the retail outlet.

"It's clearly something that is not acceptable and needs to be rectified and corrected," he said.

The official number of sick children jumped late Sunday from 6,200 to nearly 53,000.

More than 80 percent of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger, the Health Ministry said. Of those in hospitals, 104 are in serious condition.

Another 39,965 children received outpatient treatment at hospitals and were considered "basically recovered," the ministry said.

Four babies' deaths have been blamed on tainted milk powder.

The ministry did not explain the sudden increase in the number of cases but it suggested health officials were combing through hospital records from May through August to trace the origins of the contamination. The deaths of three infants linked to tainted infant formula occurred in those months, the Health Ministry said.

The WHO was having discussions with Chinese officials on how to strengthen its food quality system, Troedsson said. Local authorities need increased training to create a "more robust reporting system," he said.

"It is important to know if information was withheld, where and why it was withheld," he said. "Was it ignorance by provincial authorities or was it that they neglected to report it? Because if it was ignorance there is a need to have much better training and education ... if it is neglect then it is of course more serious."

Investigators say some raw milk suppliers, in hopes of clearing more profit, may have watered down their milk to increase volume and then added melamine, which is high in nitrogen and artificially appears to boost protein content.

Serious food and product safety scandals have been a feature of Chinese life. The country's image took a beating last year when exports of medicines, toys, pet food ingredients and other products killed and sickened people and animals in North and South America.

The chemical in the dangerous pet food was the same as in the milk scandal — melamine.

At the time, the government promised to overhaul inspection procedures and crack down on companies that took shortcuts.

[bija]

 

Looks like it is all about powdered milk.

 

In a small attempt to go devotional, green, and organic.

 

Not all possible for me to get best produce (due to small finances), but Sri Krsna (the butter thief) loves good produce, so a little gift for Him is warranted.

 

http://www.organicsaustraliaonline.com.au/prod110.htm

 

 

This is for Him. I was surprised how sweet and nectar this high quality ghee is. If only the day will come when such high quality product is freely available, as is inferior tampered produce. I had never smelt ghee like this...with love and affection boy Krsna's palate will savor this nectar.

 

In due course the hope is that the nearby Krsna farm can become alive and supply many of the devotees desires to offer purity to the All-Pure!

[Kulapavana]

It is not just the Chinese milk that is poisoned - many, many products in China, India, and other developing countries are adulterated with toxic chemicals and substitutes by greedy and unscrupulous vaishyas. Such people should be punished by death by real kshatriyas.

 

We live in a world ruled by greedy vaishyas. What do you expect? It is all right there in front of us, even in our own society.

[suchandra]

 

greedy and unscrupulous vaishyas..........

 

Good formulation! Now what do we have, a globalization movement of vaishyas without any control mechanism and governments installed by this globalization movement which simply obey the orders of the global players.

 

This worked so long the global players didn't go against each other because the huge profit kept them peaceful.

 

This seems over, global players no longer stick to fair play but go against each other and cause chaos. Once again it is proven that a regime of vaishyas cannot work without the guidance of real intelligence, the brahmanas.

 

The Vaishnava institutions kept silent and never commented about the regime of greedy and unscrupulous vaishyas, what does this say?

 

There're actually no real brahamans in the Vaishnava institutions.

Real brahmanas never keep silent but always preach the truth.

 

The truth is that vaishyas need control. They cannot be allowed to run their globalization regime according their own whims.

[Kulapavana]

 

The Vaishnava institutions kept silent and never commented about the regime of greedy and unscrupulous vaishyas, what does this say?

 

There're actually no real brahamans in the Vaishnava institutions.

Real brahmanas never keep silent but always preach the truth.

 

The truth is that vaishyas need control. They cannot be allowed to run their globalization regime according their own whims.

 

I think this was the real reason Prabhupada wanted to implement varnashrama. He saw that his movement was overrun by vaishyas who pretended to be brahmanas and kshatriyas only to profit from their position. Unfortunately it is still like that today.

 

Kshatriyas can not tolerate injustice and brahmanas can not tolerate falsehood. These are the real qualities of these varnas. Our movement suffered from lots of injustice and plenty of lies - proof positive that it is lacking in brahmanas and kshatriyas.

[suchandra]

 

it is lacking in brahmanas and kshatriyas.

The European Renaissance of the 14th–17th centuries with its influence affected literature, philosophy, fine art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual enquiry.

 

Actually these people wanted to establish that philosophy, religion and fine arts are the center of human civilization, a clear hint that this was Brahmana impetus.

 

Somehow because they didn't get real knowledge from the Vedas/Yuga Avatar, they were subdued by the vaishya movement who said, stop this nonsense, we need people to work in our industries, whole Europe plunged into industrialization under the dictate of a bunch of greedy vaishyas.

 

In fact these vaishya dynasties are still in control and basically it is them who fight against religious movements like the Sankirtan movement.

 

Renaissance architecture

 

Renaissance thinkers sought out learning from ancient texts, typically written in Latin or ancient Greek and surely would have also read Sanskrit literature but had no access..too bad!

 

Scholars scoured Europe's monastic libraries, searching for works of classical antiquity which had fallen into obscurity. In such texts they found a desire to improve and perfect their search for real knowledge.

 

They must have felt that biblical knowledge didn't answer so many questions and because vedic knowledge wasn't abvailable they were forced into a kind of empirical approach to search for the truth like jnanis, basically considering the spirituality stressed by medieval Christianity as leaving too many questions open.

 

There attempt to search for truth failed, they lost the men-in-the-street who rather walked into the manufacturies to earn their bread. Hence the powerful vaishyas took resolute control and started the global industry revolution.

 

With Prabhupada's literary presentation the global Vaishnava movement would have had a realistic chance to defy the present atheistic vaishya regime and once again make an attempt to restrain the vaishyas in their supremacy.

 

But what can be done if the Vaishnavas have problems to suit the action to word as given in sastra?

 

 

Identification of one's varna

 

Halaman Muka, 23 September 2008

 

: Jiva Gosvami, one of the greatest acaryas in our line of disciplic succession, recommended that one examine the motivation that causes one to join the Krsna consciousness movement. In his society of Vaisnavas, he had his leaders interview the new entrants and ask them why they wanted to surrender to Krsna. If they replied that they were distressed, it indicated that they were of the sudra category. If they were in need of money, it indicated that they were of the vaisya category. If they were curious to see what was going on, then it indicated that they were of the ksatriya category and if they were seeking wisdom it indicated that they were of the brahmana category. The four orders of social division in the varnasrama correspond to the four classes of pious men who surrender to Krsna.

 

source: http://all-about-krishna.blogspot.com/2008/09/identification-of-ones-varna.html

[suchandra]

Melamine-Chemical Tainted Chinese Candies Recalled From American Stores

 

 

September 30, 2008 9:25 a.m. EST

Linda Young - AHN Editor

Burlingame, CA (AHN) - Tainted Chinese candies have been found in the United States, imported by a California company.

California-based Queensway Foods Company Inc., a U.S. distributor of White Rabbit Candy, has recalled every flavor of the Chinese-produced White Rabbit candy it had imported.

Testing found dangerous levels of the toxic industrial chemical melamine in the White Rabbit candy, state health officials said Monday.

Chinese candy manufacturer White Rabbit used melamine-tainted Chinese milk products in production of its candies. Melamine was illegally added to milk and milk products in China to boost the protein content to command higher prices.

When the industrial chemical is added to food products, it boosts the apparent protein content. Melamine was the chemical found in pet food products imported from China that sickened and killed numerous American dogs and cats.

In recalling the White Rabbit candies, Queensway was responding to consumer warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the California Department of Health and the San Mateo Public Health Department.

Consumption of melamine can cause illness ranging from kidney stones to kidney failure and death.

There have been no reports of illness in the United States linked to White Rabbit candies, which Queensway distributed to California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington state.

In China, melamine-tainted milk products have recently sickened and killed babies.

[bija]

Traces have been found in Australian sweets also.