Beijing has announced it is launching a four-month joint investigation by nine government departments into illegal food additives. The vice minister of health said the government is taking this step in response to the tainted baby formula scandal. So far six children have died and nearly 300,000 were sickened from drinking powdered milk that contained melamine, an industrial chemical that can cause kidney problems when consumed. Unscrupulous producers are suspected of adding it to watered down milk to make it appear more nourishing.
The scandal was made public three months ago, and some officials new about it much earlier. There were even reports of infants developing problems from formula a year ago. As I wrote last month, the discovery of melamine in animal feed means that it has likely spread to other parts of the food chain including meat and eggs. Now the government says it will test “protein rich foods.”
“It was not a single case that banned chemicals were added in foods,” vice minister of health Chen Xiaohong said, according to Xinhua, the state-run news service. “We need to address this problem as quickly as possible.”
So, does three or more months later count as “as quickly as possible?”
Xinhua says the results “of the investigation will be released to the public after it is completed in March.” So what happens in the very likely event they find more tainted products? Let’s hope that news won’t be delayed until March, too.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has come under criticism for not revealing the names of domestically produced baby formulas it found to contain melamine. The Associated Press finally forced the agency to reveal the information through a Freedom of Information Act request. The FDA also took heat for deciding to restrict the import of some foods from China more than a month after the scandal broke.
What will China’s do if the government comes under similar pressure for its slow response? Here’s a clue: this week a court in Hebei refused to accept a lawsuit by the families of children sickened and killed by the tainted milk. The court said they have to wait, A.P. reported, because the government is still investigating.