The Very Bad: Chinese Milk (2008)
Over 300,000 people were made ill due to the use of melamine in the production of milk. Image Source: Blogger
If Ford and Firestone had to pay through the nose for their carelessness and deception toward American consumers, that’s nothing compared to the vengeance the Chinese government brought down on dairy manufacturers who knowingly poisoned children’s milk in 2008.
By the time this recall was done, six children were dead, over 300,000 had been made sick, and two Chinese businessmen were standing in front of a firing squad.
In September 2008, Chinese authorities discovered that up to 10 percent of the milk from the country’s two biggest suppliers had been adulterated with a bulk filler called melamine, which is used in fertilizer and some plastics.
Investigations, which the Chinese provincial and national governments were slow to start, revealed that two suppliers, Mengniu Dairy Group and Yili Industrial Group, had diluted their milk with water, then added melamine to artificially boost the protein content of their product.
It didn’t stop there. Not only had huge numbers of children been drinking tainted milk at school, the powdered milk these companies used had found its way into baby formula.
It was also devastating in terms of trade. Since so much of it had been exported to other Pacific-Rim countries, these countries immediately suspended food imports from China to assess the damage the tainted milk may have wrought. Even worse, Chinese reporters are known to have had information about the budding scandal as early as July 2008, but sat on the story until after the Beijing Olympics were safely over.
In the end, Chinese authorities recalled millions of dollars’ worth of tainted dairy products, including eggs, which had been laid by hens eating melamine-tainted feed, and overhauled the country’s whole dairy industry. The plants most responsible for the episode were closed, 19 public officials and private businessmen were given sentences of up to life in prison, and the official responsible for food standards resigned in disgrace.
The two men most deeply connected with the scandal – and least able to pull strings to get off the hook – were a dairy farmer named Zhang Yujun and a milk salesman named Geng Jinping. Both were given quick trials and shot in November 2009.
The government also arrested Zhao Lianhai, the father of one of the children sent to the hospital, for organizing a protest.
For proof that the regulators can get it wrong too, check out this list of the incredibly dangerous drugs that the FDA never should have approved.
