Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Ban on Chinese dairy products

If you regularly consume milk and dairy products like candies, chocolates, biscuits...etc, I would like to draw your attention to the following.

The Chinese dairy product is found to contain traces of melamine, an industrial chemical. Melamine can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. It is thought to account for four infant deaths in China. In addition that that, nearly 53,000 children in China have fallen sick after drinking melamine-tainted baby formula.

Report revealed that melamine, used to make plastics and fertilizer, has been found in infant formula and other milk products from 22 of China's dairy companies. Suppliers trying to cut costs are believed to have added it to watered-down milk because its high nitrogen content masks the resulting protein deficiency.

Singapore has already imposed ban on Chinese dairy products. Among those on the list include:
1. Chinese milk candy
2. Yili-brand yogurt bar
3. Dutch Lady-brand strawberry milk made in China

more suspected items.


(20 Sept) The Health Ministry is now also blocking the import of White Rabbit-brand candy and other Chinese products containing milk ingredients and will seize these items from store shelves, said Noraini Mohamad Othman, director of the ministry's food safety and quality division.

Tags:
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Al Jazeera

p/s: I still have an unfinished Dutch Lady fresh milk in the freezer? Should I discard it? huh, it is made in PJ, should be safe guo!!


4 comments:

Dody Ismoyo said...

there will always be ups and downs in a country's development. china has done so many things to improve their image to the world, such as beijing olympic, open market ecomony, sichuan earthquake rescue, etc etc ...

we dont blame the 'country' if a tainted milk is being produced there. there will always be 'naughty' people out there who like to make better business by doing illegal things. but a small group of people doesnt reflect or represent country as a whole. never in a million years.

it is not appropriate to blame the whole china because of this thing. even the prime minister wen jia bao has made a public apology regarding this matter and promise to put more strict rule for food quality control.

but governments are (and will always be) humans. humans are not god which can control what each person can or must and must not do. even one of the most strict & discipline country in the world, singapore, cant guard properly one of the terrorist suspect from jemaah islamiyah. he could escape from spore's jail.

defect products exists everywhere. even it is united states that produces the mad cows recently. we should always bare in mind that price is not always everything. quality, brand, image, expiry date, country of origin, etc2 (other measurements) play a really great important role in this things.

we have to admit that there are still 800 million poor people in china. if the government want to push the quality to the max, there wont be anyone that could afford to buy diary products, which again might lead to "mass unhealtiness". price and quality should be calculated wisely, and this is the job for all of those people who wanna involve in business world. of course there are always minimum standard of quality which they can never exceed (go lower).

Chemhoster said...

Haha..this fellow is rather pro-China. I don't point the finger to China government either.

You made very good points.
This has got nothing much to do with the China government. The scrupulous businessmen however should take the blame. They should uphold the loyalty and integrity to their consumers by abiding the standard set. However, I would suggest the China government focus on preventive measure which is to make the quality control more stringent, at least achieving the level which is harmless to people, talking about food in particular.

Yea, the Chinese is working very hard to improve their image, but this issue will of course take a toll of the country image. Building image is nothing different than establish a brand, which can take years or even decades, but get reputation tarnished can be in a blink of eye. So, they should really take this matter serious! And i am sure they do! They are Chinese after all.

Johnny Ong said...

dutch lady already declared that the m'sian products are safe

http://johnny-ong.blogspot.com/2008/09/malaysia-slow-in-responding-to-tainted.html

Chemhoster said...

I see. But then kinda scared to continue consuming Dutch Lady though. Shall wait until this issue to get over first.

Thanks for informing anyway. :)