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Fake milk powders `kill' babies
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-20 00:22 At least eight babies in East China's Anhui
Province have died last year by severe deficiency disease caused by fake milk
powders.
More than 100 other infants in the Fuyang area, mostly between three and five
months old, still suffer from malnutrition after drinking various cheap milk
powders produced in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Northeast
China's Heilongjiang Province and Beijing.
Although banned in Fuyang, such inferior milk powders are still sold in some
rural areas of the city, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.
Born healthy, the baby victims became thinner and thinner, but with large
heads compared to their bodies.
"My girl, the first child of mine, died when she was only four months old
after drinking the 'Haobaobei' milk powder," Zhang Linwei, a 32-year-old
villager of the Wangzhuang Village in Fuyang was quoted by CCTV as saying.
Zhang realized that his daughter got ill after the girl refused to drink the
milk powder any more half a month before.
"Before that, I thought my daughter's face was becoming fatter and fatter
because she was fed well and grew fast,"the baby's father said.
When the girl was sent to hospital, physicians had a difficult time finding
blood vessels due to a large concentration of water under he skin.
The girl died nine days later and all of the family's savings were spent for
medical fees.
"It is like a nightmare. I never imagined that my baby would pass away like
this," he said.
Zhang said he tried to contact the producer of the milk powder according to
the address on the packing bag but never succeeded.
According to statistics provided by the Fuyang Centre for Disease Prevention
and Control, 97 per cent of the unqualified milk powders the sick children ate
fail to reach the national standard of protein content for infant milk powder --
at least 10 per cent.
"The fake milk powders only have 5-6 per cent protein and the lowest is has
only 1 per cent," Qi Yong, an official with the centre said.
"For babies, drinking such fake milk powder is no different from drinking
water," Zhang Fangjun, a medical expert with the Fuyang Renmin Hospital said.
"Such so-called milk powder cannot provide any nutrition for babies' growth,"
Zhang said.
The main nutritional element a baby needs is protein, Zhang noted.
The physician said that drinking milk powder of very low protein proportions
for long will cause severe deficiency disease followed by various kinds of
complications.
Although the Fuyang authorities started a campaign last year to fight
inferior milk powders, products that kill babies are still available on the
market.
A source with the local industry and commerce bureau said there is no
effective method to ban such fake products as they are mainly produced in places
out of Fuyang.
But according to Wang Qianjun, an official with the Fuyang Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention, a Daqing-based milk powder factory complained that their
product absolutely accords with national standards and it's probably the local
sales agent that rigged it.
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