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China official ousted in milk scandal

By Seattle Times news services

BEIJING — China's chief quality supervisor was forced to resign Monday in the government's latest response to the tainted-milk scandal that has killed four infants, sickened nearly 53,000 children and implicated the country's biggest dairy producers.
Li Changjiang, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, stepped down and was replaced by Wang Yong, according to the state-run New China News Agency.
Li and his agency have been under fire since reports surfaced two weeks ago that milk powder made by the Sanlu Group was contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. Since then, tests by the watchdog agency showed formula from 22 dairy producers was tainted with the substance, which also was found in pet foods that killed U.S. dogs and cats last year.
Four babies have died, and China's Health Ministry said 12,892 infants were hospitalized with kidney problems.
Officials said tests also have turned up melamine in liquid milk. At least 18 people have been arrested, including some who are suspected of deliberately adding melamine to milk to artificially inflate protein levels.
Melamine is poisonous when ingested and banned from food production.
Li's resignation was unlikely to placate the general public, which is angry about reports that seem to indicate officials were more concerned about negative publicity than protecting children's health. Outrage has also been fueled by an apparent double standard, especially on the heels of the Olympic Games, during which officials took extraordinary steps to reassure foreign visitors that China's food supply was safe.
"It's just changing the water without changing the herbs," said Bao Zhangyan, of Beijing, referring to a Chinese saying about herbal medicine in which the important ingredient is not removed. "This scandal is caused by the whole system so it's no use just replacing a single official."
Sanlu Group, China's biggest producer of powdered milk, and other major suppliers were exempt from inspections by the watchdog organization headed by Li. On Monday, state broadcaster China Central Television reported that Sanlu knew about complaints about its baby formula as early as December 2007, citing a State Council investigation.
Sanlu finally recalled 700 tons of the formula Sept. 11. Government testing then turned up tainted samples of powdered formula at 21 other companies, and the scandal exploded.
Millions of gallons of dairy products have been recalled in Hong Kong, elsewhere in China, and in Taiwan, Singapore and other countries. China's dairy products are not approved for export to the U.S.
The government fired the head of one large dairy company, and on Monday, fired the Communist Party chief in the city of Shijiazhuang, home of one of the dairy companies at the center of the scandal.