Chinese milk scandal

The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a food safety incident in China. The scandal involved milk and infant formula along with other food materials and components being adulterated with melamine.

China reported an estimated 300,000 victims in total. Six infants died from kidney stones and other kidney damage with an estimated 54,000 babies being hospitalized. The chemical gives the appearance of higher protein content when added to milk, leading to protein deficiency in the formula. In a separate incident four years prior, watered-down milk had resulted in 12 infant deaths from malnutrition.

The scandal broke on 16 July 2008, after sixteen infants in Gansu Province were diagnosed with kidney stones. The babies were fed infant formula produced by Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group. After the initial focus on Sanlu—market leader in the budget segment—government inspections revealed the problem existed to a lesser degree in products from 21 other companies, including an Arla Foods-Mengniu joint venture company known as Arla Mengniu, Yili, and Yashili.

The issue raised concerns about food safety and political corruption in China, and damaged the reputation of China's food exports. At least 11 countries stopped all imports of Chinese dairy products.

A number of criminal prosecutions were conducted by the Chinese government. Two people were executed, one given a suspended death penalty, three people receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms, and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), being fired or forced to resign.

The World Health Organization referred to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it has had to deal with in recent years, and that the crisis of confidence among Chinese consumers would be hard to overcome. A spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was "clearly not an isolated accident, [but] a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits."

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Wikipedia