Tainted milk's victims rising
China doubled the number of children who became ill. Two men were arrested.
BEIJING - The number of infants Chinese health officials say were sickened by tainted milk powder doubled yesterday to more than 1,200 as police announced the first arrests in the spreading scandal.
The Health Ministry said two infants died of kidney failure after drinking Sanlu brand milk powder spiked with the industrial chemical melamine. The company says suppliers who sold it apparently added the chemical, normally used in plastics, to make the milk seem higher in nutrition.
Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei told reporters at a news conference that 1,253 infants had been sickened, more than twice the number previously acknowledged. Of those, 913 of the infants were only slightly affected, while 340 remained hospitalized, and 53 cases were considered especially severe, he said.
"Wherever cases are found, we'll bring out experts and resources to bear in treating the victims," Ma said.
Police said they had arrested two brothers, surnamed Geng, who run a milk-collection center in Hebei province and are accused of adding melamine, the official Xinhua news agency said. They sold about three tons of contaminated milk a day, the report said, citing Hebei police spokesman Shi Guizhong.
The incident is an embarrassing failure for China's product-safety system, which was overhauled in an attempt to restore consumer confidence and preserve export markets after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.
The milk scandal is especially damaging because Sanlu Group Co. is China's biggest producer of powdered milk and such large companies are expected to act as industry role models.
Chinese investigators say melamine may have been added to the milk to fool quality tests after water was added to fraudulently increase the milk's volume. Standard tests for protein in food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.
While none of the milk powder was exported to Europe or the United States, the scandal has taken on international dimensions because Sanlu is 43 percent owned by a New Zealand dairy farmers' cooperative, Fonterra.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday that she had learned of the problem Sept. 5 and convened a meeting of senior ministers three days later, at which she ordered officials to directly inform senior authorities in Beijing, at a time when provincial Chinese officials appeared to be dragging their feet in ordering a recall.
"We were the whistle-blowers," Clark told reporters.
"At a local level," she said, "I think the first inclination was to try and put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall."
Fonterra, the world's biggest milk trader, said it had urged Sanlu to recall the product as early as six weeks ago.