china milk scandal case study in hindi

China’s Tainted Milk Scandal of 2008

Before China’s dairy industry imploded in a swirl of tainted products, milk was a cash cow. Investors flocked to buy stock from leading dairies Mengniu, Yili and Bright as a way to tap into the growing purchasing power of Chinese consumers and the country’s rising dairy exports, which totaled $232 million last year. In rural China, poor farmers scrimped to buy cattle to boost their incomes, becoming part of the food chain serving the Chinese middle class’s new taste for milk, butter and cheese.

But as news has unfolded about how Chinese baby formula laced with the industrial chemical melamine has caused the death of four infants and sickened tens of thousands of others, milk consumption has fallen precipitously. Chinese supermarkets have cleared products from their shelves, but the crisis continues to spread beyond the country’s borders. Dairy goods laced with tainted Chinese exports have been found in Taiwan, Singapore and Japan. A dozen Asian and African nations have banned Chinese dairy products. The European Union, which prohibits the import of Chinese milk, banned baby foods containing Chinese dairy products and said it will begin testing products such as toffee, chocolate and biscuits that contain 15% Chinese milk powder.

Several Chinese dairies are suspected of negligence in allowing the distribution of tainted milk products. But investigators trying to find the actual source of the contamination have targeted distributors who buy milk from farmers and sell to the big dairies. These middlemen are likely to possess the technology necessary to adulterate raw milk. Police in central Hebei province have arrested 18 suspects, including two brothers who ran a milk collection station, the state-run Xinhua News Service reported.

But one group is already being punished. More than 2 million Chinese farmers who sell to dairies and distributors are struggling to survive because the market has dried up. “We are trying to find other buyers, or sell directly to consumers, but no luck so far,” says a farmer named He who owns about 1,000 cows on a Shanxi province collective farm. “I have 300-400 cows in production, and it’s just not possible to store the fresh milk,” he says. Over the past week, He has resorted to pouring out the surplus. Some farmers are considering slaughtering their animals to cut their mounting losses. He is trying to liquidate his herd. “We are selling them very cheap, but there haven’t been any buyers,” says He. “Still, anything is better than having to kill them.”

Dairy products traditionally have not been an important part of the Chinese diet. But government and industry promotional efforts have boosted consumption. The average annual per capita milk consumption of Chinese has grown from just 2 kg (4.4 pounds) in 1980 to 22 kg (48.5 pounds) in 2006.

Rising demand contributed to the crisis, experts say. Melamine, which is used to make plastics and is banned from food because it causes kidney stones, was added to boost the apparent protein content of milk that was increasingly scarce and of poor quality. “Demand was outstripping supply so rapidly in the market that [producers] tried every way to increase supply,” says Philippe Chan, Asia manager for Canadean, a beverage industry research firm. “That resulted in lots of raw milk not being not stringently controlled.”

Although they are not currently suspected by authorities of using melamine, farmers may have played an indirect role in the crisis, says Joseph Cheng, who runs the Contemporary China Research Project at City University of Hong Kong. That’s because farmers were squeezed between the rising cost of cattle feed and government-imposed caps on the price of milk. “The feed price rises, the milk price is low and they lose money,” Cheng says. “What do you do? You feed the cattle with low-quality feed. Then the quality of the milk is very bad and the protein content not good enough.” Somewhere along the line, melamine was added so the milk would meet the standards of the big dairies.

The Ministry of Agriculture says it intends to support the nation’s threatened farmers. The government has proposed providing stipends to owners of milk cattle to prevent farmers from selling them or butchering them. But as herds disappear, it seems likely that China’s $19 billion dairy industry will lose its ranking as the world’s third-largest.

Mothers who fed their babies tainted formula began noticing as early as last year that their children were getting sick . Dairy giant Sanlu Group, one of the producers of melamine-laced milk powder, knew as early as June about the problem, but didn’t publicly announce a recall until Sept. 11. In addition to the four deaths caused by the poison, 53,000 Chinese babies have been sickened and 12,000 have been hospitalized. Out of 109 Chinese companies whose products have been examined for contamination, 22 have turned out to be trading in melamine-tainted milk products.

— with reporting by Lin Yang/Beijing

( See photos of China here. )

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2008 milk scandal: A new twist in China’s toxic tale

The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was one of the worst food poisoning fiascos on record. An estimated 300,000 children and infants became ill, and at least six died, after ingesting milk or powdered infant formula tainted with melamine. Worse still, the chemical didn’t enter the food supply by chance or even passive neglect, it was deliberately added to the products by multiple companies. An article in the journal Science in 2008 described the operation as “nothing short of a wholesale re-engineering of milk.” While the scope of the tragedy was shocking, there was another worrying element to the case – only a fraction of the children who ingested the tainted milk products actually got sick. How could a chemical be acutely toxic to some without causing as much as a tummy ache in others? From the beginning there were doubts that melamine had acted alone in the poisoning. And now scientists believe that it had an accomplice not within the adulterated milk but in the bodies of the victims themselves, specifically the bacteria residing in their intestines.

Melamine isn’t the kind of classic poison you’d find in an Agatha Christie novel. It’s an industrial chemical used as a flame retardant and plastic stabilizer (the first time I saw the word was on the back of a plate at a Thai restaurant). In fact, it’s not even especially poisonous, requiring hefty doses to kill rodents and presumably humans. The companies stirring melamine into milk probably didn’t think it would do any harm. They were adding it for the unscrupulous but non-murderous purpose of increasing profits by sneaking watered down milk past protein spot checks.* And for the most part unsuspecting consumers just got a product with inferior nutritional content to bring home to their families. But about one percent of the children served melamine-laced milk products developed dangerous kidney problems, including kidney stones.

This wasn’t the first time melamine contamination had been linked to kidney injury. In 2007, the deaths of dozens of pets in North America sparked a recall of cat and dog food from various manufacturers. All shared a common ingredient, wheat gluten from China that contained melamine. But, unlike the milk, the pet food was found to contain an additional contaminant – cyanuric acid. When combined with melamine, cyanuric acid crystalizes and can form kidney stones.

While initial tests of the melamine-tainted milk failed to find cyanuric acid, it may have still played a role in the 2008 poisoning. Cyanuric acid, it turns out, can also be synthesized from melamine. Not only that, the transformation can be achieved by certain bacteria that produce cyanuric acid as a byproduct of melamine metabolism (i.e., they eat melamine and crap out cyanuric acid). And this is where the current study – published February 13, 2013 in the journal Science Translational Medicine – comes in.

Working on the suspicion that gut bacteria of the human victims facilitated the 2008 milk poisonings, researchers at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and the Shanghai Jiaotong University performed a series of experiments using rats to test this possibility. To begin, they fed rats high doses of melamine and gave some of them antibiotics. As you may recall from warnings about antibiotic overuse, these drugs have the unfortunate side effect of killing off normal gut microbes. In this case, however, the side effect was itself the goal. Melamine-fed rats additionally dosed with antibiotics experienced less kidney damage than those given melamine alone. Fewer gut microbes, fewer kidney problems.  Additionally the melamine + antibiotic rats had more melamine in their urine than the melamine alone group. So without enough gut microbes, melamine was more likely to just go in one end and out the other. But with the aid of gut microbes, it stuck around longer, possibly being converted into cyanuric acid and then incorporated into harmful kidney stones.

The team also looked at how melamine and gut bacteria interacted outside of rats. Since feces contain a healthy serving of gut bacteria, this was done by mixing rat droppings with melamine. As the ingredients were allowed to comingle, melamine concentrations in the samples decreased and cyanuric acid increased. As no cyanuric acid was detected in the poo-free control samples, these changes in concentration again appear to be the result of microbes turning melamine into cyanuric acid.

Of the bacteria isolated from the rat feces, species of the genus Klebsiella were especially adept at performing the melamine to cyanuric acid transformation. So the researchers decided to see if upping the numbers of these bacteria in rats’ intestines had any effect on melamine poisoning symptoms. Sure enough the kidneys of the rats fed melamine + Klebsiella bacteria (no antibiotics for anyone this time as we’re going for maximum microbes) were in even worse shape than those of the rats fed just melamine.

The collective results suggest that gut bacteria can influence melamine toxicity, at least in rats. But what about humans? The authors note that the percentage of humans found to have a species of Klebsiella ( K. terrigena ) living in their intestines is about one percent, very similar to the percentage of children affected by the melamine-contaminated milk.

While the numbers don’t contradict the possibility that gut bacteria accounted for the sickening of only some children in the 2008 poisoning, it’s difficult to establish a direct correlation. Analyzing fecal samples of the surviving victims is certainly not impossible, but it wouldn’t necessarily clarify much. Gut microbe populations can change over time, altered by diet and age. Over four years have passed since the melamine-laced milk did its damage. It’s a bit late to start cataloging bacteria now.

But beyond the 2008 milk poisoning episode, this study adds to a growing understanding of importance of the microbial residents in our guts. They’ve been shown to contribute to the metabolism of food and calorie absorbtion , but they may play also play a role in food and drug safety. What constitutes a safe chemical may vary from person to person depending on their microbial makeup. When taking medicines, we worry about their interactions with other drugs and even with food (no grapefruit with your statins please… and a host of other pills ). But as we learn more about gut microbes, we may have to revise some of our warning labels:

Take 1 tablet twice daily with water. Avoid exposure to direct sunlight. Do not take if pregnant, breastfeeding, or colonized by certain intestinal bacteria.

* To determine protein content, the test just looks for nitrogen (a component of amino acids). So while lacking in protein, melamine contains enough nitrogen to boost milk’s perceived protein count.

Alex Reshanov

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Dozens of countries have banned the sale or imports of dairy products from China. Melamine tainted milk has killed four infants in China and hospitalised tens of thousands of infants and children with kidney problems.

The European Union has banned all baby food containing Chinese milk; France has gone further by banning all foods containing Chinese milk as a precautionary measure. Altogether 24 other countries in Asia, Africa, and South America have imposed bans on some or all Chinese milk products.

The World Health Organization has called on countries to be alert to possible melamine contamination of dairy products sourced in China.

“While breast feeding is the ideal way of providing infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth …

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The 2008 milk scandal revisited.

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Six years ago today, sixteen infants in China’s Gansu Province were diagnosed with kidney stones. All of them had been fed milk powder that was later found to have been adulterated with a toxic industrial compound called melamine. Four months later,  an estimated 300,000 babies in China were sick from the contaminated milk , and the kidney damage led to six fatalities. The Sanlu Group, one of the largest dairy producers in China, was identified as the chief culprit. But as the scandal unfolded, more Chinese dairy firms became implicated.

The incident not only damaged the reputation of China’s food exports, but also dealt a devastating blow to the booming domestic dairy industry, leading to a series of mergers and consolidations. The inelastic baby formula market boosted the demand for foreign products—indeed,  after 2009, more than 100 foreign brands flooded into the Chinese market . In hindsight, it is not an overstatement that the 2008 incident is one of the largest food safety scandals in PRC history.

The scandal lays bare China’s failure to build an effective regulatory state in its transition to a market economy. Drawing lessons from the crisis, the government sought to strengthen its regulatory capacity in food safety control. In June 2009, China promulgated the Food Safety Law, which prohibits any use of unauthorized food additives. The law also led to the establishment of a high-profile central commission to improve inter-state coordination and enforcement of food safety regulation at the national level. In March 2013, China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) was set up as a ministry-level agency to consolidate authorities in food and drug safety.

These measures, while important and necessary, have not led to significant improvement in China’s food safety. At the State Council Food Safety Commission meeting in January 2013, Premier Li admitted that while food safety has improved, “there are still a  great deal of outstanding problems and potential hidden dangers ; the situation remains grim.” China’s efforts to address food safety are complicated by new environmental health hazards, such as pollution of  water and soil. Rice and garden vegetables  contaminated by heavy metals  poses major health risks, but the cleanup is highly costly and may take decades. Consumer confidence in Chinese dairy products remains extremely weak. Official media suggests that over  half of the Chinese baby formula market is dominated by foreign brands , and in some cities, the share is as high as 80 percent. In a desperate and bizarre move to beef up the domestic dairy industry, China issued a new regulation that  banned the import of dairy products  from unregistered overseas manufacturers.

In recognition of the challenges, the government leaders over the past months have upped the ante for food safety. In March, Premier Li Keqiang used the melamine scandal to argue for “ the strictest possible oversight and accountability” and “toughest possible punishment”  in safeguarding food safety. Under Li’s blessings, China last week unveiled the draft amendment to the 2009 Food Safety Law. Dubbed “ the strictest food safety law in history ,” the new version has raised the bar of food safety management and provided more explicit requirements for government agencies to follow in the food supply chain.

But how effective these efforts remains to be seen. Since the regulation of food safety incorporates several mutually reinforcing activities (production, marketing and consumption) and involves various stakeholders (e.g., manufacturers, traders, consumers, governmental actors), it is highly unlikely that pure top-down, state-centric  regulatory and legal frameworks will be sufficient to defuse China’s food safety crisis. In order to achieve robust and sustainable regulatory capacity, the government should invest in the building of a vigorous civil society and a free and socially responsible media, which would serve as sources of information and discipline in enforcing food safety laws and regulations.  It should be committed to the building of an independent court system to protect the food safety legal framework from being hijacked by self-serving bureaucrats or other vested interests.  It should also be serious about establishing a code of business ethics at corporate and individual level to keep the “capitalism without ethics” in check.  Such institutional support, as a demonstrated in  my recent book , will enable China to build its regulatory state from more solid ground.

This article originally appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia Unbound blog and can be found  here .

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China's milk scandals and its food risk assessment institutional framework.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Over the past years, a series of milk crises in China — culminating in the melamine milk scandal in 2008 — have seriously undermined public confidence in food safety. Drawing on international experience to strengthen its regulatory system, China recently introduced elements of risk assessment in its two main Food Safety Laws, namely the Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products and the Food Safety Law, which represent its basic legislation and institutional framework in terms of food safety. The article explores this new Chinese risk assessment framework in an international context. Specifically, given the similarities between the melamine milk scandal in China and the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in Europe in the 1990s in terms of both severity and link to respective corresponding reforms, much of the article focuses on a comparison of the food risk assessment institutions of the two jurisdictions in the aftermath of the crises.

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1 See Anonymous, “Food safety spawns public concern”, China Daily, 26 March 2005, p. 3.

2 In China, commonly used methods for protein analysis cannot distinguish between nitrogen from protein sources and nitrogen from non-protein sources. Adulteration practices associated with melamine occur when non-protein nitrogen sources like melamine are intentionally added to milk products containing low protein to make them incorrectly appear to contain high protein. This type of adulteration practice is based on economic incentives. According to data from the relevant Chinese authorities, dietary exposure at the median levels of melamine reported in the most contaminated infant milk brand was estimated to range from 8.6 to 23.4 mg/kg body weight per day — this is about 40–120 times the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) of 0.2 mg/kg body weight, as later established by the WHO. Even worse cases were reported, as Chinese inspection results found one milk product to contain a record 2563 mg/kg. This caused dramatic health problems in Chinese infants. See World Health Organization , Toxicological and Health Aspects of Melamine and Cyanuric Acid, Report of a WHO Expert Meeting In collaboration with FAO Supported by Health Canada, Health Canada, Ottawa, Canada, 1–4 December 2008 ( Geneva : World Health Organization , 2009 ), at pp. 1–4 . Google Scholar

4 More than twenty countries were affected, prompting product recalls for all products containing milk ingredients originating from China under precautionary rules, or bans on milk products of Chinese origin. Among the countries and regions affected were Australia, the EU, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea. See Xiao , Pinghui , “Chinese Food Regulation: Institutional Perspectives” (LL.M. thesis on file at the Maastricht University , 2009 ), p. 57 Google Scholar ; see also Willy Lam,”Milk scandal sours China's ‘soft power’”, available on the Internet at <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JJ10Ad02.html> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

5 A number of commentators view the melamine milk scandal as a man-made disaster; see Wu Zhong,”China struggles to cap milk crisis”, available on the Internet at <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JI24Ad01.html> (last accessed on 13 July 2011); see also Willy Lam, “Milk scandal sours China's ‘soft power’”, supra note 4.

6 Calvin , Linda , Gale , Fred , Hu , Dinghuan et al. , “ Food safety improvements underway in China ”, 4 Amber Waves ( 2006 ), pp. 16 et sqq . Google Scholar ; see also Xinhua Net, “Chinese consumers concerned about food safety”, available on the Internet at <http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/27/content_7624158.htm> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

7 The Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products was promulgated by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 29/04/2006, and became effective on 01/11/2006.

8 The Food Safety Law was adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 28/2/2009, and became effective on 1/6/2009. The passing of the Food Safety Law was a lengthy process in three stages. The first stage attracted a great deal of input from food law scholars and Ministries involved in food regulation. Closed door discussions resulted in different draft versions of the law. The third stage was a particularly time-consuming process. While bills tabled before the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee are normally passed within three readings, the Food Safety Law bill went through four readings, reflecting the heated debate it provoked. It was ultimately passed in February 2009. See Zhe Zhu, “Draft Food Safety Law approved”, China Daily, 1 November 2007, at pp. 1 et sqq .; see also Xiaopeng Liu and Qingchang Huang,”Eight revisions to avoid food safety loopholes (Bachu Xiugai Fengdu Shipin Anquan Loudong)”, available on the Internet at <http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/lfgz/2008-10/24/content_1454537.htm> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

9 They are considered as the basic food laws for several reasons. Firstly, they are formulated by the National People's Congress, China's legislature and highest state body, and its Standing Committee — strictly speaking, in Chinese legal practice only regulations from this source are referred to as law and nationally applied, unless specified otherwise. Secondly, these two laws are comprehensive in their nature and focus on institutional and industry policy associated with food.

10 The Legislation Law and the Constitution of the People's Republic of China set out China's law-making framework and stipulate four categories of Chinese legislation: basic laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, and administrative and local rules. Chinese food legislation is classified accordingly.

11 Actually, as readers might be aware, in the latter text, the author tends to believe that China's model is quite unique though bearing similar features from different jurisdictions.

12 The Implementation Regulation of the Food Safety Law was promulgated by the State Council on 20/07/2009 and became effective on the same date. Most laws adopted by the National People's Congress are implemented via regulations formulated by the State Council or local government, as relevant.

13 The Food Hygiene Law was promulgated by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 30/10/1995 and became effective on the same date. For a more general overview of this law, see Yongmin Bian, “The Challenges for food safety in China: Current legislation is unable to protect consumers from the consequences of unscrupulous food production”, China Perspectives (2004), pp. 4 et sqq .

14 It is understandable that the Food Hygiene Law did not feature any elements of risk assessment and analysis is understandable given that it was formulated in 1995 and replaced by the Food Safety Law in 2009. It should be noted that risk assessment and analysis were officially recognized by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) in the 1990s. Although China became a full member of CAC in 1986, China seriously started observing the relevant food standards and principles formulated by this institution only after its WTO entry in 2001. This was due to the fact that the provisions of the SPS and the TBT within the WTO Agreements directly or indirectly refer to the food standards of, among others, the CAC as benchmarks for international food trade. The inclusion of risk analysis into the recent Food Safety Law is another example of this trend. See Jiang , Shiqiang , Cai , Chunhe , Zhou , Yong et al. , “ Influence and Inspiration of our Attendance to Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) ”, Modern Scientific Instruments ( 2006 ), pp. 9 et sqq . Google Scholar ; Zhang , Rentang , Qian , Xuguang , Wei , Liu et al. , “ The challenge and replying strategy to China foodsafety system after entry to WTO ”, 5 Journal of Shandong Agricultural University ( 2003 ), pp. 37 et sqq . Google Scholar ; and Josling , Timothy , Roberts , Donna and Orden , David , Food regulation and trade: Toward a safe and open global system ( Washington, DC : Peterson Institute , 2004 ), p. 35 . Google Scholar

15 Food and Agriculture Organization , Strengthening national food control systems: A quick guide to assess capacity building needs ( Rome : Food and Agriculture Organization , 2007 ), at footnote 3. Google Scholar

16 Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization , The application of risk communication to food standards and safety matters: Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation ( Rome : Food and Agriculture Organization , 1999 ), p. 5 . Google Scholar PubMed

17 HACCP is a system of ensuring food safety and pharmaceutical safety by addressing physical, chemical, and biological hazards through prevention rather than finished product inspection. Though it shares a philosophy similar to risk analysis, they are not necessarily interchangeable concepts. This article, for instance, focuses on risk analysis rather than HACCP. For application of HACCP in the food industry, see Suwanrangsi , Sirilak and Keerativiriyaporn , Suwimon , How official services forster and enforce the implementation of HACCP by industry and trade (Second FAO/WHO Global Forum for Food Safety Regulators, Bangkok, Thailand, 12–14 October 2004) ( Rome : the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization , 2004 ) Google Scholar ; see also Mayes , T. , “ Risk analysis in HACCP: burden or benefit? ”, 9 Food control ( 1998 ), pp. 171 et sqq CrossRef Google Scholar . For the public perception of HACCP in China, see Zhigang Wanga, Yanna Maoa and Fred Gale, “Chinese consumer demand for food safety attributes in milk products”, 33 Food policy (2008), pp. 27 et sqq .

18 This figure is taken from the WHO's website, see World Health Organization,”About risk analysis in food”, available on the Internet at <http://www.who.int/foodsafety/micro/riskanalysis/en/> (last accessed on 13 July 2011). For a more informative description of risk analysis and its components, see Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization , Food Safety Risk Analysis: A Guide for National Food Safety Authorities ( Rome : Food and Agriculture Organization , 2006 ). Google Scholar PubMed

19 See The Food and Agriculture Organization and The World Health Organization , Application of Risk Analysis to Food Standards Issues: Report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation ( Geneva : World Health Organization , 1995 ), p. 7 . Google Scholar

21 Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), “The application of risk analysis in food control — challenges and benefits”, FAO/WHO Regional Conference on Food Safety for Asia and the Pacific, 2004.

22 BBC,”1990: Gummer enlists daughter in BSE fight”, available on the Internet at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/16/newsid_2913000/2913807.stm> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

23 See Xindao Huanqiu Wang,”CCTV had a comprehensive field trip to Sanlu and noted more than 1,000 tests for dairy products prior to distribution (CCTV Ceng Shenru Diaocha Sanlu Naifen: Jing Qianxiang Jiance Cai Chuchang)”, available on the Internet at <http://www.stnn.cc/society_focus/200809/t20080912_863502.html> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

24 Chen , Shumei , “ Sham or shame: Rethinking China's milk powder scandal from a legal perspective ”, 12 Journal of Risk Research ( 2009 ), pp. 725 et sqq ., p. 726. CrossRef Google Scholar

25 Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and establishing procedures in matters of food safety, OJ 2002 L 31/1.

26 White Paper on Food Safety, COM (1999) 719.

27 For a further historical account of the evolution of EU food law, see, for instance, Alemanno , Alberto , “ Food Safety and the Single European Market ”, in Ansell , Chris and Vogel , David (eds), What's the beef? The contested governance of European food safety ( Cambridge : MIT Press , 2006 ), pp. 237 et sqq . Google Scholar ; or van der Meulen , Bernd , “ The System of Food Law in the European Union ”, 14 Deakin Law Review ( 2009 ), pp. 305 et sqq . CrossRef Google Scholar

28 Art. 6 of the Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products stipulates that risk analysis and assessment shall be conducted to identify the potential hazards of agricultural products. There is, however, a lack of any further provisions regarding the so-called risk analysis.

29 Risk assessment is elaborated in Arts. 6 and 12 of the Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products on the one hand, and in Arts. 4, 13–17, 23, 45, and 81 of the Food Safety Law on the other.

30 Para. 1 of Art. 6 of the Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products.

31 Para. 2. of Art. 6 and Art. 7 of the Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products.

32 Para. 1 of Art. 13 of the Food Safety Law.

33 Para. 2 of Art. 2 and para. 2 of Art. 13 of the Food Safety Law.

34 Para. 3 of Art. 2 and para. 2 of Art. 13 of the Food Safety Law.

35 Para. 4 of Art. 2 and para. 2 of Art. 13 of the Food Safety Law.

36 Art. 16 and Art. 21 of the Food Safety Law.

37 According to Art. 2 of the Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products, “Agricultural products are those that originate from primary production, and specifically plants, animal and other organisms and the products derived from them.” Agricultural foodstuffs are not defined in this law, so their description has to be inferred from the definition of agricultural products — not an easy task given that the primary production is not defined. The Food Safety Law does not clarify matters at all — by not distinguishing agricultural foods from processed foods, it only provides a definition for general foods, which Article 19 describes as “any finished products or raw materials intended for people to eat or drink, as well as any product that has traditionally served as both food and medicament, with the exception of products used solely for medical purposes”. See Pinghui Xiao, “Chinese Food Safety Regulation: Institutional Perspective”, supra note 4, p. 3.

38 Drawing on the lessons of risk assessment consolidation and reforms in several European countries and the EU as a whole, a recent report suggested that an independent agency, tentatively named the Federal Institute for Food Safety Risk Analysis, which “would serve as the primary point of advice on scientific matters”, be established to improve on the current piecemeal approach to food risk assessment in the US. See Batz , Michael and Morris , Glenn , Building the science foundation of a modern food safety system: Lessons from Denmark, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom on creating a more coordinated and integrated approach to food safety information ( Washington D.C. : Georgetown University , 2010 ), p. 37 Google Scholar ; see also Lofstedt , Ragnar and Vogel , David , “ The changing character of regulation: A comparison of Europe and the United States ”, 21 Risk analysis ( 2001 ), pp. 399 et sqq . CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

39 For a general view of Australian food safety regulation and reform thereof, see Food Regulation Review Committee , Food: A growth industry report of the Food Regulation Review ( Canberra : Commonwealth of Australia , 1998 ) Google Scholar ; see also Taskforce , Regulation , Rethinking regulation: Report of the taskforce on reducing regulatory burdens on business, report to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer ( Canberra : Commonwealth of Australia , 2006 ) Google Scholar . For details about different Australian states’ approaches to food regulation, see Kerin , John , Integration of the NSW food safety system: final report: review required by Section 73 Food Production (Safety) Act 1998 ( Sydney : State of NSW , 2002 ) Google Scholar ; see also Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission , Simplifying the menu: Food regulation in Victoria, final report ( Melbourne : State of Victoria , 2007 ). Google Scholar

40 Art. 13 of the Food Safety Law.

41 Art. 21 of the Food Safety Law.

42 Art. 13 of the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act 1991 lists all the food standardization functions of the Authority, and Art. 18 para. (2) (a) states that to develop or review food regulatory measures and variations of food regulatory measures, the Authority must consider, among others, the need for standards to be based on risk analysis using the best available scientific evidence.

43 Para. 1 of Art. 23 of the Food Safety Law.

44 Para. 2 of Art. 23 of the Food Safety Law. Though risk assessment mainly serves the purpose of setting food standards, it has various other roles as well. According to Article 23 of the Implementation Regulation of the Food Safety Law, risk assessment programs can be launched in five types of situations, 1) if new national food safety standards are to be formulated or old ones reviewed; 2) at the request of various food regulators, to identify types of foods needing priority attention from regulators and provide them with a point of reference; 3) in the event a new potential risk arises; 4) to assess whether or not a given factor amounts to a potential food safety hazard; 5) in any other circumstances at the discretion of the Ministry of Health.

45 To date, there are no provisions within the Food Safety Law or any other food legislation specifying what their interaction with each other could be and how they can influence each other.

46 Art. 11A of the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act 1991.

47 For an historical overview of the period prior to the establishment of the EFSA, see Vos , Ellen , “ EU food safety regulation in the aftermath of the BSE crisis ”, 23 Journal of Consumer Policy ( 2000 ), pp. 227 et sqq . CrossRef Google Scholar ; for the legal background of the EFSA, see Buonanno , Laurie , “ The Creation of the European Food Safety Authority ”, in Ansell , Chris and Vogel , David (eds), What's the beef? The contested governance of European food safety ( Cambridge : MIT Press , 2006 ), pp. 259 et sqq . Google Scholar ; see also Macmaolain , Caoimhin , EU Food Law: Protecting Consumers and Health in a Common Market ( Oxford : Hart Publishing , 2007 ) Google Scholar ; for a detailed account of the structure of the EFSA, see Ellen Vos and Wendler , Frank , Food safety regulation in Europe: A comparative institutional analysis ( Mortsel : Intersentia Publishing , 2006 ). Google Scholar

48 For the purposes of a focused discussion regarding Chinese food risk assessment, only non-agricultural food risk assessment under the auspices of the FRAEC of the Ministry of Health is illustrated in this section.

49 Ellen Vos, “EU food safety regulation in the aftermath of the BSE crisis”, supra note 47, p. 229; see also, White Paper on Food Safety, supra note 26, p. 12.

50 For a constitutional analysis of comitology, see Joerges , Christian and Neyer , Jürgen , “ From intergovernmental bargaining to deliberative political processes: the constitutionalisation of comitology ”, 3 European Law Journal ( 1997 ), pp. 273 et sqq . CrossRef Google Scholar ; for its implementation in EU food regulation and recent reforms, see Muchna , D. , “ The Importance of Comitology for the Decision-making Process in the Foodstuffs Sector – Implications of the 2006 Comitology Reform ”, 31 Nutrition ( 2007 ), pp. 175 et sqq . Google Scholar

51 See Westlake , Martin , “ Keynote article: ‘Mad cows and Englishmen’ — the institutional consequences of the BSE crisis ”, 35 Journal of Common Market Studies (United Kingdom) ( 1997 ), pp. 11 et sqq . Google Scholar ; and Laurie Buonanno, Sharon Zablotney and Richard Keefer,”Politics versus science in the making of a new regulatory regime for food in Europe”, available on the Internet at <http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2001-012.htm> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

52 Vincent , Keith , “ ‘Mad Cows’ and Eurocrats — Community Responses to the BSE Crisis ”, 10 European Law Journal ( 2004 ), pp. 499 et sqq ., p. 507. CrossRef Google Scholar

53 Temporary committee of inquiry into BSE,”Report on alleged contraventions or maladministration in the implementation of Community law in relation to BSE, without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the Community and national courts”, available on the Internet at <http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A4-1997-0020+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN#top> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

54 This could occur due to pressure from Member States. As the ultimate authority over all committees affiliated with it, the European Commission could — albeit temporarily — guide the committees and push them to certain conclusions. As a political organ, it could direct the committees to work in a certain way or screen particular information, say, affecting the committees’ findings.

55 Jürgen Neyer, “The Regulation of Risks and the Power of the People: Lessons from the BSE Crisis”, 4 European Integration online Papers (EIoP) (2000), available on the Internet at <http://eiop.or.at/eiop/pdf/2000-006.pdf> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

56 Art. 24 of the General Food Law .

57 Para. 4 of Art. 26 of the General Food Law .

58 See White Paper on Food Safety, supra note 26, p. 17. It should be noted that EFSA has been given no regulatory power in the form of risk management not only because of the BSE crisis but also due to the fact that the current European Parliament treaties do not allow any regulatory power to be assigned to an independent agency like the EFSA. In other words, the allocation of regulatory power to the independent EFSA might require a modification of the existing provisions of the European Parliament treaties.

59 Seguin , Eve , “ The UK BSE crisis: strengths and weaknesses of existing conceptual approaches ”, 27 Science and Public Policy ( 2000 ), pp. 293 et sqq ., p. 300. CrossRef Google Scholar

60 Pinghui Xiao, “Chinese Food Safety Regulation: Institutional Perspective”, supra note 4, at pp. 7–15.

61 See Wu Zhong,”China struggles to cap milk crisis”, available on the Internet at <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JI24Ad01.html> (last accessed on 13 July 2011); see also “China's baby-milk scandal, formula for disaster, the politics of an unconscionable delay”, available at <http://www.economist.com/node/12262271?story_ id=12262271> (last accessed on 13 July 2011).

62 A close examination into the censorship activities of the Propaganda Department of the CCP during the melamine milk scandal provides a footnote for this conclusion. The Ordinance on Managing Online News Publishing Associated with Sanlu Milk Contamination was published by the Propaganda Department, an internal division in charge of media censorship and control in China, even though state law does not explicitly give it such authority, and the division is not even formally considered to be part of the Chinese administration. The Ordinance ordered that media were not to publish any negative news or criticize the Party or the government, and were to strictly follow dispatches from Xinhua, People's Daily and other central media outlets controlled by the CCP. Given China's institutional approach, in which Chinese media are required to be in line with the CCP's policy and politics, it is questionable whether food assessment could ever be truly independent from political influence. It is unlikely that the Chinese government would implement full institutional separation of risk assessment and management and allow full independence in risk assessment to a free body speaking on behalf of the public. See “Milk Powder Contamination Discovered in August But Made Public Now?”, available at <http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/09/contaminationdiscovered-in-aug-but-made-public-now/> (last accessed on 13 July 2011); Jim Yardley and David Barboza, “Despite Warnings, China's Regulators Failed to Stop Tainted Milk”, New York Times, at A1 et sqq .; and Blecher , Marc , “ China in 2008: Meeting Olympian Challenges ”, 49 Asian Survey ( 2009 ), pp. 74 et sqq ., p. 83. CrossRef Google Scholar

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• Volume 2, Issue 3
• Pinghui Xiao
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1867299X00001409

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SHIJIAZHUANG, China (CNN) -- The former chairwoman of China's Sanlu dairy was sentenced to life in prison and three others received death sentences Thursday in a tainted milk scandal that killed at least six infants and sickened nearly 300,000 others.

Police surround a court building in northern China in late December during the trial.

Tian Wenhua and three other Sanlu Group executives were put on trial for producing and selling fake or substandard products after their arrests in late September.

Tian, who pleaded guilty in December, received a life sentence Thursday. Former deputy general managers Wang Yuliang and Hang Zhiqi received sentences of 15 and eight years, while Wu Jusheng, a former executive heading Sanlu's milk division, was sentenced to five years in prison.

In addition, Sanlu, Tian and Wang were ordered to pay multi-million dollar fines.

The court also sentenced three people to death, including a suspended sentence pending a review, and two others to life in prison. Six more received prison terms of five to 15 years each.

China Milk Scandal

Security was tight ahead of the verdicts, as police set up roadblocks a kilometer (0.63 miles) in each direction from the courthouse.

Parents outside the courthouse were outraged by the sentence that spared Tian's life. A mother who's baby died from contaminated milk said she wanted Tian shot to pay for the life of her child.

Twenty-one suspects went on trial late last month. Nine have yet to be sentenced.

Sanlu was one of the main distributors of the tainted milk, which caused kidney stones and urinary tract problems in hundreds of thousands of children.

Chinese investigators found melamine in nearly 70 milk products from more than 20 companies, according to quality control official Li Changjiang, who was eventually forced to resign.

The Ministry of Health has said the contamination likely caused the deaths of at least six babies. Another 296,000 infants suffered from urinary problems, such as kidney stones.

The tainted formula came to light in September after babies who were fed milk powder produced by the Sanlu Group, which recently filed for bankruptcy, had developed kidney stones.

• 60 arrested over China's tainted milk
• China milk exec faults lack of rules, awaits verdict
• China's tainted milk scare spreads globally
• Blog:  Surviving the milk scandal in China

Victims of tainted baby formula are expected to be compensated by the 22 Chinese dairy producers that made the milk.

"The enterprises offered to shoulder the compensation liability," the country's Dairy Industry Association said late last month, according to Xinhua.

"By doing so, they hope to earn understanding and forgiveness of the families of the sickened children."

The group said victims will receive a one-time cash payment, but did not provide the amounts, according to Xinhua.

All About Sanlu Group Co. • China • Food Safety

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Corporate crime and state legitimacy: the 2008 Chinese melamine milk scandal

• Published: 31 May 2015
• Volume 63 , pages 247–267, ( 2015 )

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Ghazi-Tehrani, A.K., Pontell, H.N. Corporate crime and state legitimacy: the 2008 Chinese melamine milk scandal. Crime Law Soc Change 63 , 247–267 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-015-9567-5

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China dairy products found tainted with melamine

• Published 9 July 2010

Six babies died and 300,000 were ill during the 2008 melamine scandal

Chinese food safety officials have seized 64 tonnes of raw dairy materials contaminated with the toxic industrial chemical melamine.

The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, reported that the quality watchdog in Qinghai province took the material from a dairy plant there.

Test samples showed the milk powder carried up to 500 times the maximum allowed level of the chemical.

The use of melamine in milk in 2008 killed six babies and made 300,000 ill.

The latest batch of contaminated powder was first found in Gansu province and traced back to the Dongyuan Dairy Factory in Minhe Country, in neighbouring Qinghai.

Another 12 tonnes of finished milk powder products, also found to be tainted, were seized.

The owner and a production manager at the factory have been detained.

Around 38 tonnes of the raw material were bought from Hebei province, the source of the 2008 scandal, police said.

This means traders may have bought tainted milk that should have been destroyed in 2008 with the intention of processing it and reselling it, Wang Zhongxi, deputy chief of Gansu's quality control bureau, was quoted as saying.

Serious concern

Melamine is used to make plastics, fertilisers and concrete.

When added to food products it indicates a higher apparent protein content but can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

In 2008, melamine was found in the products of 22 Chinese dairy companies - one out of every five suppliers in China.

The scandal caused outrage among consumers and fraught parents and led to an international outcry about the standards of food safety in China.

More than 20 people were convicted for their roles in the scandal, and two people were executed.

Despite a crackdown on melamine-laced milk products, some batches of tainted supplies have been found on sale since 2008.

It is not clear whether any powder from this new discovery has been sold on the open market or if anyone has fallen ill, but the fact melamine is still being used illegally will be a cause for serious concern, the BBC's Damian Grammaticas in China says.

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China’s image sullied by tainted milk.

BEIJING: The flag flew, the music surged, and state-run television was filled with triumphant images of the Beijing Olympics and the successful Shenzhou VII spacewalk, marking, on Oct. 1st, the Chinese Communist Party’s 49th anniversary in power. But if the party had hoped to spend the day basking in the adulation of the Chinese people and the admiration of the world, it hadn’t counted on the reverberations of a self-inflicted body blow to Brand China – the tainted milk scandal.

At last count, 53 brands of dairy products in China, plus foreign brands made with Chinese milk ingredients including Cadbury chocolate and Lipton milk tea powder, have been found to contain melamine, a binding agent used to make plastics and floor tiles. Chinese dairy producers found another use for the chemical – adding it to watered-down milk, because melamine’s high nitrogen content makes the milk’s protein levels appear higher than they are.

The tainted milk found its way into yogurt, ice cream, cakes, cookies, cereals – and, most unbelievably for many Chinese parents, who have been ordered by the state to have just one child, powdered baby formula.

“Some people are saying the presidents of those milk companies should be executed, and I think they’re right,” says grocery store owner Tian Yang Qing, as she glances through a government-supplied list of dozens of tainted products. “How could those businessmen do this to little babies? Think of how the children’s development is affected. Think of how their lives are affected. It’s terrible.”

Some 54,000 Chinese children have ended up in the hospital after drinking melamine-tainted milk formula, and at least three have died. Other children have been hospitalized with kidney stones in Hong Kong and Taiwan. So far, Chinese authorities have arrested at least 27 people in connection with the crisis.

The global response since the scandal broke in mid-September has been swift. More than a dozen countries have banned some or all dairy products from the affected brands. The European Union slapped a ban on any baby food originating in China that has even a trace of milk. Some analysts estimate it could take until 2010 for the $20 billion Chinese dairy industry to regain what it’s lost in credibility and sales – and that’s assuming China’s leaders get serious about enforcing a rigorous and transparent quality-inspection system, something they’d promised to do after the last year’s food safety scandals.

China’s leaders have been scrambling to send reassuring messages. “The problem shows that we should pay more attention to business ethics and social morality in the development process,” Premier Wen Jiabao told a World Economic Forum meeting in Tianjin. “These are some of the growing pains of China’s road to economic reforms. We will overcome them by facing the challenges truthfully.”

But Wen himself sounded less than truthful in another remark he made in the same speech. “China did not intend to cover the truth when the incident happened.”

The state-run media have reported a different story. It is a story about managers of a major Chinese brand, Sanlu, knowing as early as last December that its powdered baby formula had problems, but doing nothing. It’s a story of a father, 40-year-old Wang Yuanping of Zhejiang province, worrying as far back as February about why Sanlu’s powdered milk was making his daughter sick. He was persuaded to shut up with the free supply of four cases of the same.

It was not until early August that Sanlu informed local government authorities of the problem. By then, just days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics, local officials knew better than to spoil the celebration. Weeks went by. More children fell ill. Eventually, in mid-September, the New Zealand government intervened with Beijing on behalf of Fonterra, a New Zealand company, which owns a 43 percent share of Sanlu. The hushed-up story was finally blown wide open.

As an online editorial on Access Asia, a China and Asia consumer market analysis group concluded, “Fonterra knew something was wrong. They decided to try and deal with the problem internally, worried about the negative effect on Sanlu, on China during the Olympics and of course on themselves.”

But this isn’t a story about just one bad actor. It’s about dozens of Chinese dairy producers and collectors, gaming the quality-inspection system over time, adding not just melamine but also, in the past, other chemicals, so they could water down their milk, pass cursory quality inspection tests and make more money. It’s also about a state regulatory system that failed.

“In any (regulatory) system, you can’t rely on testing alone,” says Jorgen Schlundt, director of the World Health Organization’s food-safety department. “That’s the old-fashioned way. You have to have a system where you look at what are the risks and how do we prevent them, as close to the source as possible. You need to have a system where you have a culture of openness and quick reporting.”

That’s exactly what China does not have. Instead, it has a system where many businesses try to get away with what they can, and many local officials try to cover up problems that happen on their watch, either because they’re profiting from the businesses in question, or because they fear that problems could cut into their chances for a raise or a promotion. That mentality has delayed reporting in recent years on SARS, bird flu, toxic chemical spills and food contamination. In each case, local officials preferred to risk other people’s lives than their own careers. The central government’s warnings that it would fire those who don’t report promptly have failed to transform the old mentality.

Meanwhile, consumer protection mechanisms in China remain weak, and the government appears to want to keep them so. About 20 of the lawyers who have been trying to help families affected by the tainted milk scandal say they have received calls from local governmental legal authorities, warning that they could lose their licenses if they continue to help affected families.

What the government appears to fear, in this case as with previous class-action attempts on property and pollution, is a snowballing effect that could lead to a national political movement. It seems to prefer to keep victims isolated from one another, while stressing social harmony and promising to pay medical bills and fix the problems.

Premier Wen has now pledged to overhaul the quality-inspection system for food and dairy. One problem, says the WHO’s Schlundt, is that up to 16 different authorities now split that responsibility: “It is always a problem when you have many separate authorities that may not have the same culture of reporting.” He says it’s a good first couple of steps that China has put the Food & Drug Administration under the Ministry of Health, and suspended a system that allowed some favored companies, including Sanlu, to do their own quality inspection. But a thorough reorganization will take years.

Meanwhile, there’s urgent damage control to be done. Without swift and effective action to better protect its own consumers and citizens, China’s leaders may find that the wave of goodwill they’ve been riding of late may dry up, and bring them down to earth with a thud.

Mary Kay Magistad covers Northeast Asia for The World.

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Journal of Communication Management

ISSN : 1363-254X

Article publication date: 19 September 2018

Issue publication date: 24 October 2018

The purpose of this paper is to examine crisis communication strategies used by four leading Chinese milk companies at various crisis stages to cope with the largest food safety crisis in China. Approaching the interplay between the situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2007) and the image restoration theory (Benoit, 1995), the study attempted to understand the importance of crisis management at various crisis stages by comparing crisis communication strategies used by surviving and thriving companies with those by the company that failed.

Design/methodology/approach

Dividing a crisis management process into three stages, a content analysis was conducted to analyze five major crisis communication strategies – evasion of responsibility, rebuilding, bolstering, endorsement of outside experts and government relations – used by Chinese milk companies at various crisis stages.

The study demonstrated that Sanlu, which went bankrupt as a result of the scandal, predominately took the Chinese crisis management approach. The other three companies that survived the scandal employed western crisis communication strategies, although with distinct Chinese characteristics. Specifically, all four companies employed similar strategies during the pre-crisis stage – keeping silent/covering-up. During the crisis stage, strategies varied dramatically as companies became involved – looking for government protection and apologizing, while survivors tended to adopt a widely used western strategy – bolstering at the post-crisis stage.

Practical implications

The examination of crisis communication strategies at various crisis stages may shed some light on how effectively Chinese companies and possibly international companies in China can manage future crises that share similar profiles as this milk scandal and further call for attention to scrutinize the social responsibility of corporate citizens in China.

Originality/value

This study would fill the vacancy in research by investigating crisis communication strategies used in the largest food safety crisis in China. The findings provide insight for understanding the current status of crisis communication strategies and management within a Chinese matrix of political, social and cultural factors.

• Corporate image
• Crisis communication
• Communication strategy
• Corporate social responsibility

Zeng, L. , Zhou, L. , Pan, P.-L. and Fowler, G. (2018), "Coping with the milk scandal: A staged approach to crisis communication strategies during China’s largest food safety crisis", Journal of Communication Management , Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 432-450. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-11-2017-0133

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