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 several central government departments and led by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.
The ministry also admitted that food-safety issues were endemic:
“The tainted-milk scandal shows illegal production of food products and the use of non-food substances are not isolated incidents. Instead, they are quite typical of the industry,” Vice-Minister of Health Chen Xiaohong said during a national teleconference in Beijing.
For those of you marking your dance cards, the food-safety campaign will have three phases: From tomorrow to Jan 10, companies will be asked to conduct self-examination and correction. From January 11 to March 10, law enforcement officers will raid high-risk food producers or regions, and intensify random checks on markets. From March 11 to April 10, the focus will be on illegal food-additive producers and cutting off the supply of high-risk non-food substances.
We’ll see.
China Bystander 