JANUARY 25, 2010, 8:55 P.M. ET
Zheng Shuzhen holds a photo of her granddaughter, who died after drinking tainted milk, in Beijing last May. Associated Press
SHANGHAI—Chinese state-run media said the industrial chemical melamine was found again in milk products early last year, the latest report to suggest the government's crackdown on potentially dangerous practices in the dairy industry after a major 2008 food-safety scandal didn't fully solve the problem.
Milk products made by three companies, Shandong Zibo Lusaier Dairy Co., Liaoning Tieling Wuzhou Food Co. and Laoting Kaida Refrigeration Plant, were found to have included excessive melamine and removed from store shelves in the southwestern province of Guizhou, according to a Jan. 19 news report in the province. The article, which indicated the action took place in early 2009, was reported Monday by the English-language China Daily newspaper, giving it national attention.
A Guizhou government spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokesman for the provincial health bureau didn't return a telephone call and a person answering his phone denied knowledge of a problem. The companies couldn't be reached.
Chinese state media have reported two other times in recent weeks cases of tainted milk discovered elsewhere in the country last year, including in Shanghai. In some of the cases now coming to light, including the latest revelations from Guizhou, authorities appear to have removed the tainted product from store shelves in early 2009, just months after Beijing vowed a vast restructuring of its dairy industry to protect the public. It isn't clear why the incidents are surfacing now.
After 300,000 people were sickened by melamine-tainted milk in 2008, including six babies who died, Beijing passed a food-safety law that included promises of stronger testing and recall regimes. The government said it wouldn't tolerate cover-ups.
Two of the dairies recently implicated in state media, including Laoting Kaida and Shanghai Panda Dairy Co., were also among the 22 companies identified by government inspectors in 2008 as producers of dairy products with melamine, which has widespread commercial applications and can improve readings for protein in tests of milk.
News reports say that among the problems now is repackaging of melamine-tainted milk removed from markets in 2008 but not destroyed.
In the Shanghai case, Chinese media reported problems with Shanghai Panda on New Year's Eve, although the problems had occurred last April.
In the Shanghai municipal government's first confirmation of the case, a spokesman on Jan. 11 conceded delays in publicly announcing the action—including a national recall of the problem milk and closure of the dairy that produced it—by saying the case was complicated because it straddled provincial borders.
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