A Timeline of the Sanlu Milk Case

Date	Progress	Source of Information
9/16/2008	Another infant was confirmed died from using Fonterra Sanlu powder milk	Fonterra
9/15/2008	Melamine was detected from products of Haoniu Dairy of Gansu Pronvince. Haoniu is a partner of Fonterra Sanlu, and follow Fonterra Sanlu production guideline	Xinhua News
9/15/2008	Fonterra's CEO Andrew Ferrier refused to take responsibility for not having gone public six weeks earlier when he first learned of the crisis	Andrew Ferrier
9/14/2008	Reporting and Discussion of the case was banned by The Propaganda Department of the CCP, except that by the official Xinhua News Agency	Internet Cache
9/13/2008	hundreds of thousands little kids flooded hospitals around the country to do ultrasound scan, which revealed 20-30% had developed varies stages kidney stones.	Jinling Evening Daily, Dr. Feng's Blog
9/13/2008	Health Minister Gao Qiang held press conference, and denied any government awareness of the case before 9/8/2008	Health Minister Gao Qiang
9/12/2008	Evening: Health Ministry notified WHO, and launched Public Recall, 700 tons could not be traced	News Report
9/12/2008	Morning: 800 police stormed 41 dairy farms. 78 farmers were questioned and 19 were arrested for allegedly mixing melamine into milk	News Report
9/11/2008	A Gansu newspaper named Sanlu in connection with infant kidney failures	Nes Report
9/10/2008	Professor Sun Xizhao of Nanjing University wrote to newspaper questioned an Unnamed Milk Powder caused infant kidney failure. The same day Sanlu denied any knowledge of it	News Report, Sanlu website
9/9/2008	Health Ministry ordered recall	Health Ministry Gao Qiang
9/9/2008	Baidu refused to honor the 'protection status' agreement when requested by Sanlu	Baidu
9/8/2008	Prime Minister Helen Clark met with cabinet regarding the situation and ordered Fonterra to notify Beijing	Helen Clark
9/8/2008	Sanlu submit a written report to Hebei Province, Health Minister Gao Qiang claimed that this was the first time Sanlu notified government officials of any level	Health Minister Gao Qiang
9/5/2008	New Zealand Prime Minister was informed of the situation	Prime Minister Helen Clark
8/27/2008	Dr. Zhang Wen of Huazhong University of Science and Technology told news media that Sanlu infant formula had caused many infants kidney failures in the past year. This was the first time a medical doctor named Sanlu to the news media, although many had been discussing this privately	News Report
8/17/2008	National top food safety agency AQSIG visited Sanlu but didn't make any decision	News Report
8/14/2008	New Zealand Embassy in Beijing was informed of the crisis	Helen Clark
8/11/2008	A memo from Sanlu's PR Consulting Firm Beijing Lantaotonglue noted numerious negative reference of Sanlu with connection to infants kidney failures. The memo laid out three strategies in handling the crisis, including purchasing a 'protection status' from the largest Chinese language search engine Baidu at the price of RMB Yuan 300 million	FAX from Lantaotonglue
8/6/2008	Sanlu coordinates mass medical assistance for infant victims	Sanlu, News Report
8/5/2008	Sanlu's dairy product produced after 8/5/2008 are free of melamine	Tian Wenhua, Chairwoman of Sanlu
8/4/2008	Sanlu stopped 2,000 tons of powder milk from entering market, and secretly withdrew 8080 tons of powder milk contaminated with Melamine through the Health Ministry	Tian Wenhua, Chairwoman of Sanlu
8/3/2008	Sanlu alerted the situation to the City of Shijiangzhuang, Hebei Province and Health Ministry	Tian Wenhua, Chairwoman of Sanlu
8/2/2008	Fonterra learnt of the situation	Fonterra
8/1/2008	Melamine was detected and documented	Sanlu, Tian Wenhua, Sun Dongdong, Professor of Beijing University and expert of the Health Ministry
7/23/2008	Hunan TV Metropolitan Channel reported a sudden alarming rise in infant kidney stones cases. In one hospital received 16 infants with severe kidney stones. The TV program revealed all victims used the same brand of milk. Packages of canned and bagged powder milk was shown on the TV, but did not explicitly name Sanlu	Hunan TV
7/1/2008	Sanlu launched investigation into infants kidney failures after drinking Sanlu infant formula	Tian Wenhua
2/2/2008	A Zhejiang consumer contacted Sanlu, and a range of local authorities after Sanlu powder milk made his daughter difficulty to pee. Later, without knowing the extend and seriousness of the issue, the consumer accepted an exchange of 4 boxes of Sanlu powder milk. He posted his story on a popular Internet community Tianya. This is the first documented exposure of this scandal.	Internet Cache, Wu Yuanping (the consumer)
3/1/2008	Reports of mass infant kidney failure started arriving Sanlu, Sanlu asked government agency's help to test dairy products which all appeared to be acceptable	Sanlu
3/1/2008	Several Inquiries, including one made by a known kidney surgeon, was made to the top food safety agency AQSIQ. These complaints had been deleted from AQSIQ website, but still available from Google cache	Internet Cache and Dr. Feng Dongchuan's Blog
3/1/2008	Hospitals around the country noticed a sharpen increase of infant kidney failure cases, many alerted the manufacture as well as local safety agencies	Sanlu
1/8/2008	Sanlu infant formula received the National Award of Science and Technology Progress, and became the only dairy product ever to receive this top national science and technology award	News Report
9/2/2007	The Propaganda Arm of CCP, the CCTV hailed Sanlu the top quality dairy product in its weekly 'Quality of Made-in-China' Special Program	CCTV, YouTube
7/10/2007	The Director of China FDA (State Food and Drug Administration, SDA) Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu was executed for oversight of the pet food that poisoned American cats	public record
5/8/2007	In the aftermath of the US FDA findings, AQSIQ examined 399 samples of export food products and 800 domestic food products, and failed to find any trace of melamine. AQSIQ hail the result a testimony of excellent food quality in China.	AQSIQ
4/20/2007	AQSIQ ordered all food export must go through melamine tests	AQSIQ
3/30/2007	US FDA declared Melamine was detected in pet food imported from China. Hundreds of cats and little dogs became sick or dead after eating import pet food.	news Report
11/25/2005	New Zealand based Fonterra Acquired 43% of Sanlu, Fonterra has 3 representations on Sanlu's 7 persons board	Public Record, Fonterra
7/5/2005	900 packages of Sanlu yoghurt were confiscated by Tianjin authorities for post-dating production date	News Report
6/1/2004	Sanlu was named in a 'Big Head Baby' scandal of producing low cost powder milk with zero nutritional value and caused 13 babies' death. After an aggressive emergency campaign, Health Minister Gao Qiang arranged to have Sanlu removed from the blacklist.	News Report