Memories still too raw for Chinese parents to trust baby formula

Ten years have passed since Fuyang farmer Zhang Linwei's four-month-old daughter died from drinking cheap infant formula. The powder he bought for just nine yuan (HK$11.30) a 400-gram bag at a city supermarket in Anhui left the baby puffy, with a big head and small mouth.

"When my baby was born, she cried loudly, but then her voice gradually became quieter," Zhang, 40, said. "I took her to a hospital in our town and the doctors there said they couldn't treat my baby and suggested I go to Fuyang Women and Children's Hospital. At the second hospital, doctors said they had received numerous similar cases and told me to have the baby formula we fed her examined."

Tests found that all the nutritional elements in the formula were far below the national standard, with the protein content just 0.16 per cent compared to the required level of 18 per cent.

"I think my daughter was starving to death," Zhang said.

In what became known as the "big-headed-doll" incident, a dozen babies died in Anhui after drinking substandard formula for months and hundreds more were malnourished, with cases also reported in other provinces.

The scandal dealt a devastating blow to public trust in the safety of mainland food - and especially its dairy products.