Mail - Two babies die and 1,200 more fall sick as industrial chemical is added to baby milk formula

Two babies died and more than 1,200 were left sick after an industrial chemical was added to milk in China, it emerged today.
Today 53 infants were fighting for their lives and 240 were being treated in hospital after developing kidney stones from drinking the contaminated formula.
Chinese police have arrested two brothers they suspect added melamine, a chemical used in plastics, to watered-down milk at their dairy collection centre to make it appear higher in protein.

Worried: A father stands by his ill son holding a packet of contaminated formula
It was then sold on to Sanlu, China’s biggest provider of powdered milk, and turned into baby formula.
The firm, which is partly owned by New Zealand dairy farmers’ cooperative Fonterra, has now been ordered to cease production pending an investigation.
The brothers are accused of selling Sanlu about three tons of contaminated milk a day, Hebei police spokesman Shi Guizhong said.
Chinese investigators say melamine may have been added to the milk to fool quality tests after water was added to fraudulently increase the milk’s volume.
Melamine is rich in nitrogen, and standard tests for protein in food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.
China’s Health Ministry said a total of 1,253 babies have been sickened after drinking the formula.
Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei told a news conference that 913 of the infants were only slightly affected and their condition was not considered life threatening.
However, 340 remained in hospitaland 53 cases were considered especially severe, he said.
No information was given about the fatalities.
Critics have claimed the problem had been known of for weeks, but had been hushed up because China did not want bad publicity during the Olympics.
Sanlu is 43 percent owned by a New Zealand firm Fonterra, the world’s biggest milk trader.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said today that she had learned of the problem on September 5 .
She convened a meeting of senior ministers three days later at which she ordered officials to directly inform senior authorities in Beijing.
At the time provincial Chinese officials appeared to be dragging their feet in ordering a recall.
‘We were the whistle blowers and they leapt in and ensured there was action on the ground,’ Clark told reporters.
‘At a local level ... I think the first inclination was to try and put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall,’ she said.
Fonterra said it had urged Sanlu to recall the product as early as six weeks ago. Sanlu did not order a recall until last Thursday.
Chinese officials have defended their response to the country’s latest product safety disaster but blamed Sanlu Group for delays in warning the public.
Inspectors will check the country’s 175 baby milk food factories and their findings will be released within two days, Li said.
The incident is an embarrassing failure for China’s product safety system, which was overhauled in an attempt to restore consumer confidence after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.
The milk scandal is especially damaging because it involves a major Chinese food company and the government expects such companies to act as industry role models for safety and quality.
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.