Sanlu Group, one of China's largest dairy products makers, has published a notice which admits that some of its milk powder products had been contaminated by a chemical called tripolycyanamide and states that the company has decided to recall about 700 tons of the baby milk food produced before August 6, 2008.
Hospitals in Gansu, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei said that many infants around one year old had been diagnosed with kidney stones. Although the actual causes have not been determined, parents of these infants said that they had been feeding their babies with Sanlu milk powder products.
According to the latest news from Xinhua News Agency, the Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group admitted in an announcement that the company had conducted an internal investigation and found that some batches of its baby milk powder were contaminated by tripolycyanamide, a chemical substance that may led to the formation of stones in the human urinary system.
China's Health Ministry has launched a nationwide investigation into infant cases that might have resulted from drinking the formula, and is organizing experts to work out schemes for treatment. At the same time, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, has also sent a team to Sanlu to investigate the cause of the accident and carried out nationwide check of other baby milk powders' quality. The Health Ministry urged the public to immediately stop consuming the formula and go to doctors if it has been fed to their babies have and their babies have difficulty in urinating.
So far, many supermarkets, including Carrefour, have withdrawn the suspect products from their shelves.
Sanlu's minority stakeholder is a New Zealand dairy farmers' cooperative called Fonterra.
