Investigators believe dairy farmers added a dangerous chemical to milk that has been linked to kidney stones in infants and one death in China's latest product safety disaster, state media reported.
The government vowed "serious punishment" after China's biggest milk powder producer recalled 700 tons of baby formula. The official Xinhua News Agency said Friday the powder was tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastic.
The producer, Sanlu Group, knew about the contamination Aug. 6 but refrained from telling the public, said a company manager, Su Changsheng, quoted on the Web site of Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine. Su said Sanlu kept silent because some grocers refused to return tainted powder, but the report did not say why that prevented a public warning.
Authorities are questioning 78 people suspected in the contamination, Xinhua said.
"The suspects added water to the milk they sold to Sanlu to make more money," Xinhua said, citing deputy mayor Zhao Xinchao of Shijiazhuang, the city where Sanlu is based. "They also added melamine so that the diluted milk could still meet standards."
A separate Xinhua report said investigators believed dairy farmers were to blame.
Su, the Sanlu manager, told Caijing the chemical might have been added to make the milk's protein content appear higher. Melamine is nitrogen-rich, and standard tests for protein in bulk food ingredients measure levels of nitrogen.
People who answered the phone at Sanlu said managers were not available to comment.
"Those responsible will face serious punishment," said a Health Ministry spokesman, Mao Qunan, quoted by Xinhua.
Fifty-nine babies who were given the formula in northwest China's Gansu province _ most less than a year old _ ended up in the hospital, Xinhua reported. Other cases were cropping up across the country.
It was the second prominent case involving harmful baby formula in China in recent years. In 2004, more than 200 Chinese infants suffered malnutrition and at least 12 died after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients. Some 40 companies were found to be making phony formula and 47 people were arrested.
The reputation of Chinese exports was battered last year by deaths and injuries blamed on tainted toothpaste and other products. The incidents damaged faith abroad in Chinese goods and sparked an overhaul of its regulatory system.
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Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.
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On the 'Net:
Sanlu Group: http://www.sanlu.com
U.S. Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov
Fonterra Co-operative Group: http://www.fonterra.com
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