Adulterated Food And Consumer Rights

Authorities investigated 76,500 instances of adulterated food last year, according to Ma Yong, a senior official with the National Food Industry Association. In the year that saw fatally tainted infant formula, that was probably only the tip of the iceberg.
A comparative figure for 2006 was 68,000 cases. Given the international and domestic attention focused on [...]

China Passes Food-Safety Law

China has passed its first food-safety law, and established a cabinet-level commission to oversee it. The idea is to create a national set of food-safety standards under one regulator and put more legal liability on China’s 500,000 food producers.
How effective it is and whether it will reassure consumers whose confidence has been left in tatters [...]

Compensation For Melamine-Poisoned Babies Coming

A hint of compensation to come for families whose children were affected by melamine-tainted baby formula.
A Health ministry announcement of a four-month nationwide food safety campaign said that a compensation package for victims was being worked on,  China Daily reports. The government has formed a team to handle the compensation issue, consisting  of officials of [...]

Death Toll From Tainted Baby Formula Officially Raised To Six

The Health Ministry now says that six deaths can be attributed to tainted baby milk powder and that 294,000 infants were hospitalized after drinking the melamine-contaminated formula.
That is a large advance on the last numbers made public, in September, when the scandal first broke: four dead and 53,000 hospitalized. In October, without updating those numbers, [...]

U.S. Tightens Import Restrictions On Foods From China

The U.S. has expanded its import controls on Chinese foods that is suspects might be contaminated with melamine. The U.S Food and Drug Administration has issued a nationwide import alert that applies to all milk products, all milk derived ingredients and all finished food products containing milk. Previously, its controls applied only to specific products. [...]

Hong Kong Finds More Melamine-Tainted Eggs

The melamine-tainted eggs are getting to be like the melamine-tainted baby formula.
First there was one manufacturer whose products were found to be contaminated. Then there were many. Tests in Hong Kong have found three more brands of Chinese eggs containing high levels of the chemical. This all suggests the problems with food safety still run [...]

HK Extends Melamine Testing After Finding Chemical In Chinese Eggs

The melamine-tainted food scare just keeps on spreading. Hong Kong said tody that it is expanding its testing to include meat products imported from China after discovering excessive levels of the chemical in eggs yesterday.
The eggs, from Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group, contained 4.7 parts per million of melamine, almost double the permitted maximum of 2.5 [...]

New Figures For Melamine-Related Illnesses

China had stopped updating the figures for the number of babies sickened after drinking melamine-contaminated infant formula. Last commonly quoted numbers were four dead and 53,000 hospitalized. But in announcing new permissible levels of melamine in foods on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said that 10,066 children remained hospitalized with eight in serious condition. No new [...]

Missing Melamine

The concerning thing about Cadbury’s recall of its chocolates made with milk tainted with melamine is that all of the dairy suppliers to Cadbury’s Beijing plant had earlier been given the all-clear by the Chinese testing. It was the company’s own tests that uncovered the traces of melamine, although the source and extent is not [...]

More Tainted Dairy Products, More Anger, Less Confidence

It now not just melamine in baby formula from one company sold in three provinces, but in dairy products nationwide, and beyond. Chinese dairy products are being pulled off shelves in Hong Kong and Japan. Malaysia and Singapore have banned Chinese milk imports.
At home, consumer outrage is growing. Beijing has ordered free medical treatment for [...]