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Taiwan bans products by Sanlu Group

CONTAMINATION FEARS: Taiwanese authorities have located about 70 percent of the imported milk powder imported from China and ordered that it be destroyed
　

By Flora Wang, Mo Yan-chih and Jerry Lin
STAFF REPORTERS, WITH AGENCIES IN BEIJING AND WELLINGTON
Monday, Sep 15, 2008, Page 1
　

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) requested yesterday that all products from China’s Sanlu Group, which was found to have added a toxic chemical to its milk powder, be immediately barred from Taiwan and vowed to impose stricter screening procedures on other milk products from China.

Liu said the producer’s addition of chemicals into its milk powder products was unacceptable, Cabinet Spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) told reporters later yesterday.

Shih said the premier had also requested that the Department of Health continue to track down the contaminated powder and that it seize and destroy the powder to prevent the product from threatening the health of Taiwanese.

The department said yesterday at noon that part of the 25 tonnes of milk powder imported to Taiwan had been used as an additive in instant coffee, flavored milk, cakes and bread. The department said it had so far located about 70 percent of the milk powder.

Shih said government agencies had taken emergency measures — including obtaining information about the company that imported the milk powder — as soon as the Straits Exchange Foundation learned of the problem from its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, on Friday.

Although the milk powder imported to Taiwan was only used as a food additive, the premier urged the department to complete tests to prevent public panic because of a lack of information, Shih said.

Taipei City’s Health Department said yesterday that 14 packs of the milk powder had been sold to 14 bakeries, of which 11 were used to make cakes and breads.

Another three packs had yet to be used by food companies or bakeries and would be reclaimed and destroyed by the department, said Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美), director of the department’s Food and Drug Division.

Chiang said the cakes and breads made with the milk powder may have already been sold to customers. However, the milk powder only accounted for 2 percent to 3 percent of products and did not pose an immediate health risk.

People who worry about having consumed food containing the milk powder can drink more water to reduce the risks of developing kidney stones, she said.

Aside from Sanlu, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) requested yesterday that other Chinese dairy companies either provide testing reports from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (中國質量檢驗局) to prove that their products do not contain melamine, or that their products pass department inspections on a batch by batch basis before receiving approval to enter the local market.

“We are now putting a temporary ban on Sanlu Group products and will not lift that ban until public concerns are addressed,” ministry deputy minister John Deng (鄧振中) said at a press conference yesterday.

The Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection said the incident was likely the result of human activity and did not involve residual contamination during the production process.

Almost 15,000 tonnes of Chinese milk powder, with an import value of US$49.86 million, were imported to Taiwan from the beginning of last year until the end of June this year, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said.

Forty-one batches of food products from China were disqualified in the first six months of this year. Of these, Chinese white shrimp, which continuously failed to meet food safety requirements, have been temporarily banned from import, a ministry report showed.

China vowed yesterday to improve its food safety supervision after confirming that 432 babies suffered from kidney stones and at least one died after drinking contaminated milk powder.

The Hong Kong-based Sing Tao daily reported that more than 30,000 babies were affected and that 19 individuals had been arrested in connection with the case.

An efficient system should be set up to combine efforts of various ministries and bring food safety supervision “to a new level,” Xinhua news agency reported, citing Chinese Health Minister Gao Qiang (高強).

Gao said on Saturday that kidney stones had been found in 432 babies nationwide since China was rattled by its most recent product quality scandal.

The number was sharply up from figures reported earlier that put the number of affected babies at about 150, with one dead. Kidney stones are rare in babies and can block their urinary tracts.

The State Administration of Industry and Commerce, an agency in charge of enforcing discipline in the marketplace, issued a strongly worded statement calling for thorough inspections of sales outlets for baby milk powder.

“We require further strengthening of supervision and management of the market for baby milk powder,” the administration said in the statement, posted on the Chinese government’s Web site.

“We will strike hard against the illegal practice of selling fake milk powder,” it said.

Shops across China, including global retailing giants Wal-Mart and Carrefour, pulled the milk powder from their shelves on Friday after Sanlu issued a nationwide recall.

Sanlu added melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, glues and other products, to the milk powder in order to ensure that the protein content was up to standard, Gao said.

Melamine was also found last year in large amounts of US pet foods containing Chinese-made additives.

The renewed focus on Chinese product safety standards comes at an awkward time when the Asian giant is seeing its trade surplus shrink and can ill afford questions about the quality of its exports.

While the trade surplus hit a monthly high of US$28.7 billion last month, it nevertheless dropped 6.2 percent in the first eight months of the year from the same period last year.

The US Food and Drug Administration has already alerted US markets to beware of Chinese-made baby formula and the WHO said it was monitoring the situation and providing “technical assistance” to China.

The Chinese health ministry said the milk powder had not been exported, except for a small amount that had been sent for “food processing” in Taiwan.

Chinese officials have complained they were not alerted until Monday of the tainted milk powder, even though Sanlu received complaints as early as March and its tests found melamine in the milk last month.

Shoddy and fake goods are common in China, and infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

In 2004, at least 13 babies in the eastern province of Anhui Province died after drinking fake milk powder that investigators found had no nutritional value. The scandal prompted government efforts to strengthen monitoring of food safety.

Chinese investigators were looking into how and why the melamine was added to the milk.

Gao said it might have been done to fool quality tests after water was added to fraudulently increase the milk’s volume.

Melamine, used in plastics and other products, is rich in nitrogen, and standard tests for protein in food ingredients measure nitrogen levels. Gao said Chinese law bans its use in food, adding that Beijing was sending experts to treat the hundreds of sick babies and would pay for their care.

“We are confident that with timely diagnosis and treatment, these infant patients will recover soon,” he said.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra said yesterday it had known since last month that the Chinese firm it part-owns was selling contaminated milk now linked to the sickness of more than 400 babies and at least one death.

Fonterra, which owns 43 percent of Sanlu Group, said the company was seeking a meeting with the Chinese government to discuss the issue.

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Lin wins powerlifting gold at Paralympics

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Monday, Sep 15, 2008, Page 1
　

Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-hui celebrates her gold medal in the women’s 75kg powerlifting event at the Paralympic Games in Beijing yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-hui (林資惠) yesterday won the powerlifting gold in the women’s 75kg category at the Beijing Paralympics Games.

Lin, who was defending her title from the 2004 Athens Paralympics, took an early lead by lifting 137.5kg in her first attempt — the same weight that earned her the title in Athens.

With none of her competitors registering to lift the same weight, Lin made two attempts at 142.5kg to break the Paralympic record of 140kg set by China’s Li Ruifang (李瑞芳) at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000. Both attempts failed.

After winning, Lin said: “I don’t want to be a second-class citizen. I hope President Ma [Ying Jeou, (馬英九)] sees the importance of this medal.”

Lin said that as defending champion she felt tremendous pressure and credited her coach, Chen Ying-teh (陳穎德), with helping her relieve her stress by talking to her and helping her analyze her opponents.

Lin left her temporary job at the Changhua County Department of Social Affairs two years ago to prepare for the Paralympics. With support from her family, she put all her efforts into her training.

When she called her mother after winning the medal, Lin cried so hard that at first her mother believed her daughter had failed to win a medal. It was only after Lin’s coach spoke to her that she realized her daughter had won.

Lin said she started going to the gym at the age of 17 to lose weight and to relieve some of the pressure from university entrance exams. It was then that she met Chen.

During these 11 years of hard training, she said there were times when she thought of abandoning it all, especially around the time of her graduation from senior high school. Another reason was that Taiwan’s system for helping and protecting disabled athletes was inadequate. It was thanks to Chen’s encouragement that she managed to go on and win the gold in the same discipline in Athens in 2004.

Chen also gave up his job to assist Lin and has constantly been at her side during the past two years.

In 1998, after only two months as a powerlifting athlete, Lin qualified for the national team and won a bronze medal at the world championships.

She barely missed a medal at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000, where she lifted the same weight as the bronze medallist, but placed fourth because she was heavier. After that experience, she started paying more attention to her weight and in yesterday’s competition she was the second-lightest at 72.9kg. Lin said she had shed 5kg after arriving in Beijing, but added that having lost too much weight might have been the reason she failed in her attempt to break the record.

Lin said that during training, she regularly lifts 147.5kg and felt she should have set a new Paralympic record with relative ease.

Lin said she now hoped she would be able to find a steady job, adding that she could try to defend her gold a second time in London four years from now.

The gold was Taiwan’s first medal in the Beijing Paralympics. The silver went to Egypt’s Mohamed Randa Tageldin, who lifted 135kg, and world-record holder Zhang Liping (張麗萍) from China took the bronze by lifting 132.4kg.

Tseng Lung-hui (曾隆輝) also took an archery bronze in the men’s individual recurve.
　

DOH plays down toxic milk powder fears
　

SPILLED MILK: DOH officials said that the toxic milk powder was put into Taiwanese products, but it was not used in infant products and the chances of overdose are low
　

By Shelley Huang And Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTERS
Monday, Sep 15, 2008, Page 2

The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said that some finished products such as mooncakes and coffee beverages made with imported toxic milk powder have already been sold and consumed.

All future dairy products imported from China, however, will be tested for the presence of melamine, officials said.

The DOH said the powder had not been made into any infant products in Taiwan, but that it had been sold to bakeries, farmers and biochemical companies in many parts of Taiwan to be put into products such as mooncakes, bread, canned coffee beverages, papaya milk beverages, calcium tablets and fertilizer.

The DOH has been able to locate and seal between 50 percent and 60 percent of the contaminated products, authorities said.

“On average, baked goods contain between 1 percent and 3 percent [of the toxic milk powder] and coffee beverages contain 1.5 percent at the most,” said Hsiao Tung-ming (蕭東銘), acting director of the Bureau of Food Safety.

“According to standards set by the European Food Safety Authority, 0.5mg of melamine is the tolerable daily intake for every kilogram of body weight per day,” said Lin Ja-liang (林杰樑), director of clinical toxicology at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.

This means that a person who weighs 60kg would have to consume more than 200g of pure melamine, or “tens of kilograms of the contaminated milk powder” to die from an overdose.

Lin said the reason for kidney stones in infants in China was because “their kidneys are not fully developed yet and they don’t know how to tell their parents where they hurt,” adding that in Taiwan, because the toxic milk powder is only one of the many ingredients in food and beverage products, “chances [of overdose] are close to zero.”

For those who are still worried about having consumed the harmful substance, Lin’s advice is to detoxify by drinking lots of water.

The safest way is to drink enough water to produce 2000cc of urine, which would lead one to urinate about seven times a day.

“[Doing this] will rid the body of about 90 percent of all kidney stones under 0.5cm,” Lin said.

Lin also said that because the contaminated products “are already in our bodies,” authorities should react faster in the future to protect consumers.

“We will work with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to ensure that all dairy products imported from China have been tested for melamine before they enter our borders,” Hsiao said.

“If China kept the information to themselves, it would have been very difficult for us [to detect that products have been contaminated],” Hsiao said, adding that governmental agencies will work to set up preventative measures.

Control Yuan member Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) said yesterday that he would file an application at the Control Yuan today to initiate an investigation to determine if the Department of Health, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture had neglected their duties in case.

In addition to Taipei City, the DOH said that they found the toxic milk powder had been sold in at least nine counties and cities, including Taichung City, Taipei County, Taoyuan County, Yunlin County, Chiayi County, Hualien County and Kaohsiung County.

Step up checks of Chinese imports

Monday, Sep 15, 2008, Page 8

There has been yet another health scare from China. The news has been full of stories about toxic milk powder produced by the Sanlu Group, which has led to babies developing kidney stones. While consumers can check to ensure the tins of powdered milk they are using do not contain Chinese-made powder, the greater concern is that many companies use milk powder in their products. How can people ensure that cakes and puddings, bread, moon cakes, teashop drinks and many other items are safe to consume? The exact distribution of the contaminated powder in Taiwan is still unknown, adding yet more uncertainty to a Mid-Autumn Festival already tormented by Typhoon Sinlaku.

This latest health scare caused by inferior Chinese products has highlighted the serious holes in Taiwan’s defense against such products. Apparently 25 tonnes of the contaminated powder was imported into this country. The Department of Health (DOH) has sent staff members to Kuishan Township, Taoyuan County, to seal 393 sacks in storage there but 605 sacks had already been sold. Much of the powder may already have been consumed. This is a major food safety crisis.

The government’s import controls must be reviewed. Customs currently samples just five lots out of every 100 lots imported, which is why they missed Sanlu’s milk powder in June. But even if inspectors had checked more lots, they may still have missed the contaminated milk powder, since melamine is not part of checks required by the health department.

The department should quickly amend its inspection requirements, and the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection should increase the proportion of samples required to be tested. All Chinese dairy products should now be tested for melamine and Sanlu’s products should be completely banned. Even if Chinese tests show that a product is uncontaminated, Taiwan’s inspectors should take their own test samples.

If another Chinese brand of milk powder is found to contain melamine, the import ban should be expanded to include all Chinese dairy products.

Is has been frightening to see how China’s health and food safety authorities have procrastinated and tried to avoid responsibility for this latest poisoning case, with apparent disregard for human life. There were reports that babies in China were getting sick from toxic milk powder beginning in March. Patient histories were leaked to the media in mid-June, but milk powder was still allowed to be sold in China and exported abroad. Sanlu said it discovered that its milk powder contained melamine early last month, but its products were only recalled on Thursday.

Domestically, the response from health and customs authorities was also slow in coming. The DOH showed a total lack of awareness in this latest case; while in previous scares, such as the poisoned dumplings, pet food and toothpaste, officials checked Chinese imports as soon as the news broke. Wire agencies reported on Thursday that hundreds of Chinese babies had been sickened by toxic milk powder, yet there was no reaction from the DOH. The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) issued a press release about the issue on Friday evening. But it was only later that night that the DOH told the Taoyuan County Public Health Bureau about the problem. The Taoyuan bureau sent officials to the importer around midnight on Friday, but it was Saturday before they could look into the matter properly.

The failure of the DOH to quickly investigate the case should be the focus of an inquiry. But the SEF should also make it an urgent priority to establish closer cross-strait mechanisms for reporting food safety issues. Taiwan’s food and health authorities should increase their inspection of Chinese food product imports and strengthen checks to ensure food safety controls.

What did Beijing gain from Games?

Monday, Sep 15, 2008, Page 8

‘A critical question is how Beijing’s renewed confidence might affect the politburo’s running struggle to subdue and eventually to take control of Taiwan.’

The lights in Beijing’s Olympic sites have been turned off, the drummers and the fireworks have been stilled and Michael Phelps and the other athletes have gone home from the most politicized Olympic spectacle in decades.

Now comes a really trying event: assessing the effect of the Olympics on China itself and on China’s stamina and strategy as a long distance runner in a marathon to see who will dominate Asia.

As Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, has written: “The Olympics was China’s announcement to the world that it is a global power. But with this prestige comes global responsibilities in foreign policy and in domestic human rights.”

Whether China will live up to those expectations is the primary question of the post-Olympics era.

At first glance, it would seem clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tightened its authoritarian grip on power in Beijing. It cracked down on dissent during the Games, allowing no demonstrations despite 77 applications for permits, and it has shown no sign of relenting. Even so, protests against oppressive local rulers persist and Beijing faces continued unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang.

A Chinese journalist visiting Hawaii, Cao Haili, suggested to a luncheon audience at the East-West Center, the research and educational institute in Honolulu, that many people outside of China thought the Olympics would open China to improved human rights.

“China made some effort during the Olympics,” she said, “but it is difficult for China to change overnight. Fundamental change will come only from inside China.”

Nationalism, already a strong force within China, has been enhanced by China’s sleek conduct of the Games and reinforced by China’s garnering of 51 gold medals. The Chinese concentrated their funds and training on individual events such as gymnastics, badminton and riflery, and won only 21 silver and 28 bronze medals.

The US, in contrast, did better in team sports such as basketball, volleyball and soccer, taking the most medals overall, 110. Like most nations, besides China, the medals of the US were fairly evenly distributed with 36 gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze.

Several other journalists from China in Hawaii pointed to a greater sense of confidence among President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and his colleagues in the ruling politburo. They disagreed, however, on whether that confidence would cause China’s leaders to relax their controls gradually or to assume that their insistence on centralized control is best for China.

A critical question is how Beijing’s renewed confidence might affect the politburo’s running struggle to subdue and eventually to take control of Taiwan.

Relations between Taipei and Beijing have warmed up in recent months under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), but an early test will come up when the UN General Assembly convenes tomorrow. Taiwan has asked that it be permitted to “participate” in UN activities and those of its affiliated organizations such as the WHO.

Before, Taiwan asked to join the UN or to become an observer. Each time, China adamantly opposed that arrangement, contending that Taiwan was part of China and that Beijing spoke for Taiwan. This time, US officials said, Washington favors the approach by Taiwan since its skirts the issue of sovereignty over Taiwan. If Beijing blocks Taiwan’s participation, that may indicate that China’s hostility is unabated.

Similarly, another test of China’s attitude will come next month when APEC meets in Peru. In previous years, the Chinese have insisted that only a low-ranking official from Taiwan be allowed to attend. This year, Taiwan will seek to have a high-level official there. China will be watched closely to see if its opposition to Taiwan has eased.

A third test is likely sometime this fall when the US approves a long-awaited arms sale to Taiwan. A series of quiet meetings between senior US officials and those of Taiwan appear to have repaired relations between Washington and Taipei that had been damaged by disagreements over China policy between the Bush administration and the government of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Beijing will undoubtedly protest the sale, as it always has, but the heat of the protest will indicate whether Beijing has become confident enough to state its objections in a lower key.

Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.