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SCMP Reporter

Parents get children checked, doubt safety of other brands
Anger and panic spread across the mainland yesterday in the wake of the Sanlu milk powder scandal, as netizens questioned why the government had failed to take action when parents complained months ago and others  wondered if milk products made by other firms were tainted.
Online chat rooms and internet forums were filled with messages discussing the country's latest food scare. The tainted baby milk formula produced by Sanlu Group has left 432 babies sick and one dead. It has triggered widespread panic because Sanlu accounts for more than 18 per cent of the market share.
Many parents took their babies to hospitals yesterday for check-ups, including some who had not used  Sanlu milk powder. Many said they wondered if melamine - a chemical believed to increase the appearance of protein content but which can cause kidney stones - could have been used in other brands of baby milk formulas.
Sanlu has recalled more than 8,000 tonnes of the product.
Parents were angry as more evidence emerged showing people had complained to the authorities as early as March.
A man from Wenzhou  in Zhejiang province  posted an article in several popular internet chat rooms in May complaining about  Sanlu milk powder, which gave his seven-year-old daughter diarrhoea and made it difficult for her to urinate. The man supported his claim with plenty of evidence and photographs.
The post was soon buried with few people paying attention to it at the time. But it was resurrected yesterday and had received more than 90,000 replies since Friday morning. His post is one of the earliest known cases of the Sanlu scandal.
In his post, the man said he had bought 15 packs  of Sanlu milk powder since November last year, including formula for young children, for adults and for the elderly.
'I soon realised something was wrong with the milk powder,' he said in the post. 'My daughter drank the milk in the evening and she suffered diarrhoea the next morning and her urine became yellow and sticky with small particles.
'Her condition returned to normal once she stopped drinking the milk. But the symptoms returned once she drank it again.'
He said at first he thought the products were  fakes and sent two packs to  Sanlu's headquarters in Shijiazhuang  on February 25.
A few days later, the country's largest dairy producer replied and said the products he sent were genuine and there were no quality problems. The company representative told the father that he could get a refund if he was not happy but refused to show him the test report.
In March, he reported the case to a local consumers' committee, but  did not receive a satisfactory answer.  He later found out the biggest kindergarten in Wenzhou was feeding Sanlu milk powder to all its children.
'I could not afford to test the products myself. What I could do is to request again and again for Sanlu to release their own test results,' he said in the posting.
On May 21, after receiving no satisfactory response from the company or the government, he finally decided to take it to the public and posted an article in several chat rooms. Unfortunately, these postings did not get much attention.
Some mainland media said Sanlu manager Zhong Yun, who is in charge of the Wenzhou market, contacted the man on May 31. He was offered four boxes of milk powder valued at 2,500 yuan and asked  to stop talking about the case.
The man accepted  and signed an agreement. He now regrets giving in but said it was too hard  to carry on.
Thousands of angry netizens replied to the post and said the tragedy could have been stopped as early as February if Sanlu and the government had taken the man's complaints seriously.
Panic also struck mainland consumers, with many openly questioning if other brands were  safe.  Faith in government quality reports has been  shaken,  after people discovered  Sanlu had been praised by  central media days before the scandal came to light.
Some kidney stone patients are now blaming the country's dairy producers for their illness and openly expressed their anger.
One  poster online said: 'I was found to have several kidney stones in August. I always drank a milk powder my wife bought. I cannot remember which brand it was but I bet it was what caused my illness.'
Many consumers now say they will stop buying all milk products and only consume foreign brands.
'If this could happen to Sanlu, it could happen to others,' one said.



Panic spreads as more fall ill in milk powder scandal