01.14.11
Made In China: Arrest for melamine menaces
Melamine, sold as protein powder, back in 2007.
From Reuters, news that China is rounding up a new group of melamine manufacturers and salesman.
Years ago it was discovered China had become something of a melamine mill, the compound cheaply produced as an adulterant/substitute in animal feeds. The purpose was an old one — to push up protein determinations in feeds and foodstuffs without actually adding protein.
In the US, Chinese melamine production came to light when the compound was found contaminating pet foods, where it set off a chain reaction that resulted in kidney stones that killed animals.
Mao Li Jun ran a company, Xuzhou Anying, which claimed to have solved the problem of finding cheap protein for food stuffs. It advertised its solution, a white powder, on Alibaba. That white powder was melamine.
“[The] high price of protein feed it improves the cost and decreases the benefit, which results in the pasturage develope [sic] slowly,” he claimed. ‘ESB Biologic Protein Meal’ settles the tableau of the protein resource in China, it decreases the cost of feed and improves the integral benefit and boosts the pasturage integral development of China. So developing the item is very necessary in this form.'”
That write-up, at old DD blog, is here.
In the US, companies named ChemNutra and MenuFoods were principally responsible for distributing it into the pet food supply chain.
The melamine scandal destroyed ChemNutra. A criminal trial against the company, in news from 2009, is here.
The trial was considered to be a joke and its outcome — two misdemeanor convictions in a plea agreement — is discussed here.
MenuFoods was sued. News of the subsequent class action settlement — to the tune of $28 million — is here.
All things considered, just a standard last decade example of bad corporate behavior getting off fairly lightly. The melamine, after all, only killed pets.
In China, melamine was linked to adulteration of baby food milk products. And it did result in fatalities.
Now, back to Reuters and China’s melamine ring round-up:
Chinese police have arrested 96 people for lacing milk powder with the toxic additive melamine, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday, the same chemical that killed several babies in a milk powder scandal in 2008.
Last July, samples of milk powder found in northwest China’s Gansu and Qinghai provinces had levels of melamine up to 500 times the permitted limit, underscoring the lax enforcement of food safety in the country.
Among those arrested, 17 had been convicted, including two people sentenced to life in prison, Xinhua said, citing a statement from the State Council’s Food Safety Commission.
Thirty-eight people were awaiting trial, the report said, adding that Chinese authorities had seized 2,132 tons of melamine-tainted milk powder. The remaining 41 were “under investigation in police custody”. It did not elaborate further.
The latest crackdown identified “loopholes in the quality control system of dairy products”, Xinhua said, citing the statement.
The exposure of tainted milk products in poor and remote parts of China’s northwest has underscored the persistence of food safety problems that have alarmed consumers and sparked criminal scandals that led to executions and official sackings.
It should also be noted that China’s justice system gives life terms to farmers who ride toll roads with forged military license plates in order to avoid paying.
However, the Chinese government’s pursuit of the melamine criminals stands in stark contrast to the US government’s treatment of corporate businessmen who have been caught sickening people.
Mostly, nothing much happens to them. After they get scolded by Congressmen, it’s up to class action lawyers.