Parents Of First Baby To Die Of Tainted Infant Formula Accept Compensation

The parents of the first child to die from ingesting melamine-tainted infant formula has accepted compensation from Sanlu Group, the dairy company at the heart of the scandal, their lawyers say. They have taken the 200,000 yuan ($29,000) death payout under the standardized compensation scheme announced last month by China’s dairy association and the 22 [...]

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, [...]

Tainted Baby Formula Death Toll Said To Be Officially Undercounted

The Associated Press is reporting at at least five more infants died after drinking melamine-tainted formula than the three the official numbers count. The news agency also reports that lawyers, doctors and reporters have said privately that authorities pressured them to not play up the human cost or efforts to get compensation from the government [...]

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 [...]

More Melamine Problems Pop Up

The melamine-tainted food scandal has taken a couple of bizarre twists.
First,  Britain’s Food Standards Agency said late last week that a Chinese-made novelty food product sold in U.K. sex shops has been taken off the shelves after being found to be contaminated with melamine. A FSA spokesperson said: “This is a first. We’ve never had [...]

The Economics Of Tainting Milk With Melamine

Chemistry World puts some numbers on the cost of adding melamine to milk (here via the Royal Society of Chemistry site). It is a profitable business:
Industrial melamine costs about 12,000 yuan (US$1765) per tonne, much higher than the price of milk – 1200-1800 yuan per tonne. But the practice of adding melamine to milk is [...]

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 [...]

Ripples From Tainted Dairy Products Scandal Spread Wider

It is less than 48 hours since a senior official said the problems with tainted dairy products were under control. Since then the E.U., India, France and South Korea have joined the ranks of those imposing restrictions on Chinese milk and dairy related imports, the maker of White Rabbit candy has issued a product recall, [...]