Oct 10 2008
Some types of milk are less equal than others
Flashbacks of my dad writhing in pain from kidney stones in the middle of the night appeared before me as I punched out yet another story of a food scandal in China.
That happened when I was barely 3. Yet, the image was etched in my mind because his agony was so intense. I watched as my mom frantically called the ambulance as she covered my dad with blankets, helplessly.
So imagine the shivers I got at the thought of babies having kidney stones. They have barely learned to smile at their parents even as they experience pain that is unbearable even for adults. Some ignorant grown-ups actually thought that adding toxic industrial substances to food is okay, as long as nobody gets killed.
Well, these adults killed four, and thousands of infants have become unfortunate guinea pigs to test the effects of melamine on humans.
Experiments have shown that melamine can cause renal stones and damage to the reproductive systems of small animals.
Thanks to the protein-cheats, now we know that it hurts human babies, too.
I put my faith in local-brand yoghurt shortly after I moved to Beijing as the French brand that I was accustomed to isn’t easily available. But that faith dissipated as fast as the CGI fireworks footprints that so impressed the world at the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, when news of the scandal broke.
Has China’s pace of development moved so fast that money chasers have lost sight of ethics?
To millions of villagers, the milk business is literally a cash cow that can pull them out of poverty.
One could earn 10,000 yuan per month just by centralizing the process of milking and distribution.
Stories of crop farmers turning into cow rearers are aplenty.
Today, close to 70 percent of milk supply in China comes from village-based milk stations that collect raw milk from different farmers. These stations make money from offering facilities for milking and then distributing the milk to dairy companies.
Given the scale and the seeming laisser faire nature of the industry, there appears to be a lack of quality control on milk, even on cows. That’s when greed rears its ugly head and takes over.
It doesn’t help that local officials condoned questionable practices by sitting on the issue, hoping it would go away.
If they had studied China’s recent spate of scandals - from the SARS cover-up, poisoned pet food to lead-tainted toys, they might have anticipated the backlash. Or perhaps they were willing to gamble as the stakes were too…low?
“Greater good” aside, do they ever look squarely at themselves and ask what really matters?
All that the parents wanted was to offer the best for their children.
But the system has let them down.
the milk scandal is a very dangerouse thing as many people are worried as mention in timothy go’s blog responsive food labeling both the blog & comments .
Before the outburst of the poison milk incident, I was already sceptical about the safety of food products made in China, from Chinese medicine to candies. There were already numerous incident which took place in China itself.
The development of a nation is not just about economy and wealth but also morality. The poison milk incident is not the first and will not be the last.
On its way to become an economic power in the world, the Chinese need to be accountable to this world for what it does.
China, with its population of over 1.3 billion, is a very large country to control. There will always be the greedy few who want to be rich regardless of means. Hence the Government has a very big task confronting them to control the safety and quality of their products. The milk scandal highlights that there is negligence by many parties for this to continue and and not stopped. MNCs producing products should have their own inspection teams from overseas and not rely on a local QA team to ensure that products are manufactured to the strict specifications.