Melamine Daddy Was Disappeared

Melamine Daddy Zhao Lianhai was disappeared from his home after speaking out on artist Ai Weiwei's disappearance via an Internet video. Zhao said in the video that he felt obliged to say something for Ai, because he would have to explain the situation to his son in the future. He does not want his son to be shamed of him for taking cover when a good man was wronged.

Hours later, Zhao was taken away by secret police who did not reveal their identity. His family has not been able to find where Zhao is being held and on what charge.

In the past few weeks, dozens of activists and outspoken lawyers alike had been disappeared. A few of them was formally charged, but most simply disappeared. State run 'Global Times' published an editorial titled 'Law will not bend for People Walked their Own Way'. Without spelling out the charge, the editorial suggested Ai was taken in for incomplete papers to leave the country. Earlier today, official Xinhua News Agency published a brief message online saying Ai Weiwei had been under investigation on business related crimes. However, the message was removed minutes later. It looks the regime had not made up its mind on using which clause to frame Ai. Therefor on official account, Ai remains in disappearance 3 days after he was taken away while boarding an airplane at the Beijing International Airport.

Zhao Lianhai's son is a victim of the Melamine-poisoned Sanlu milk case. Because Zhao asked the state to help children victims in medical care, he was sentenced to 2 and half years in jail last year by the communist court. Zhao was released after representatives from Hong Kong protested. However, in exchange, Hong Kong representatives to the National Congress were told they should not interfere with national affairs in the future, but rather focusing on Hong Kong issues.

For understandable reason, the Seagull will suspend blogging on mainland's political issues for 3 months, or until the trend changes, whichever comes last.

Milk, Milk, Milk

.1. Shengyuan Milk was widely reported by newspapers to having caused many infants sexual pre-mature. Girls and boys alike as young as 4 months old was found to have breasts developed as mature women. Shenyuan Milk is a major diary producer in China, with concentration in Northern area including Beijing and Hebei.

.2. A new round of diary product with over-dozed melamine are emerging in China. The government believes it is made from materials that was not properly destroyed in the previous round of cleanup. The Ministry of Heath stated that there was no 'technical methods' to guarantee all over-dozed product be destroyed.

.3. A new national diary product was released. This is the update to the standard made in 1986. Notably, required protein ingredient was lowered from 2.95% to 2.8%. The measure is believed to deter common practice of adding melamine to boot up protein ratio. Also, the allowed bacteria was increased from 500K to 2,000K. In comparison, the upper limit of allowed bacteria in South Korean standard is 7K.

.4. The Chinese Customs announced that mainland people could no longer get more than two tins of powder milk from oversea family members in mail. Ever since the melamine case broke out, many of the overseas Chinese community had taken the duty of sending powdered milk to their families with little kids in China. The new measure will effectively kill milk-by-post due to high cost of shipping.

- Whatcha gonna to do when they come for you? -

China Removed Melamine in Dairy, Finally Officially

Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China published a new set of dairy national standards. For the first time, removed the melamine from national standards. Until today, manufactures are encouraged to add melamine to dairy to improve the taste and appearance of products such as milk powers and yogurt, etc. The new standards will come to effect in three phases: June 2010, December 2010 and April 2011. So buyers of Chinese dairy products should hold the money until new products produced under new standards come to market sometime 2011 or later.

Dairy products over-dozed with melamine came back in mass scale last year, despite the international scandal of 2008. At the time, the government explained it was technically difficult to regulate.

The Sunlu Dairy Company who earned the bad name after the revelation of adding melamine, merged with Sunyuan Dairy. Sanyuan Dairy is the major supplier of dairy product to McDonald's.

Collateral Damage of Obama's China Visit

Father of a stoned-child victim of the Sanlu Milk, Mr. Zhao Lianhai became a collateral damage of President Obama's China visit.

Although Zhao and Obama did not know or hear of each other, Beijing resident Zhao was arrested days from his home before Obama's visit because the authority was afraid Zhao, the organizer of an advocacy group for victims of Sanlu Milk, would petition the case to Obama.

Zhao was formally changed to provoking a fight, a weird charge indeed. Does the authority think Zhao would invite Obama to a duel? Or does the authority think Obama's rescue of Melamined Chinese kids could provoke a duel between Obabma and Hu?

The owner of the Sanlu Milk which poisoned hundreds of thousands of kids, killed dozens, were half Chinese government, half New Zealand company Fonterra. A Chinese court ruled that the company would operate under another name, Beijing Sanyuan. The same court ruled that the 'new' company does not have obligation for any compensation for medical expenses of sick kids.

McDonald's Sanyuan Melamine Baby Killers

Hebei Sanlu (Three Deers) Dairy Company, a state run enterprise triggered the melamine crisis, changed its name to Sanyuan (Triple Circles) Hebei to avoid compensating victims. Sanyuan is a Beijing based dairy company listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The wholly held subsidiary will start producing next week.

Sanyuan operates McDonald's franchise in Beijing and Guangzhou. While Sanyuan refused to pay for baby's medical expenses, more are dying at this minute.

After the scandal was revealed, more than 30,000 infants were hospitalized and had to go through surgery, while tens died.

The court system across China have thrown out legal complaints against Sanlu, citing government instructions.

The next burger you eat in McDonald's is dipped with baby blood. Boycott Sanyuan, for your health; Boycott McDonald's, for justice!

Start of Melamine Milk Powder

Around June 2004, newspaper reported cases of babies died of drinking milk powder with zero nutritious ingredients in Anhui Province. Before their death, these babies had distinctive appearance of swollen heads due to water intoxication. They were referred to as the Big Head Babies. Sanlu Dairy was named as one of the suppliers who produced the killer milk. In a PR stun and with help from higher up (the acting minister of the Health Department, Mr. Gao Qiang), Sanlu was removed from the list.

Amid public outcry after the breakout of the extend of the Big Head Babies scandal, the Chinese government started testing the protein level contained in milk powder products, which, in turn, trigger the melamine scandal.

To answer questions from readers, the techniques of adding melamine was introduced in 2004, and peaked in 2007, when Sanlu was awarded a national science progress award, the highest national award in science. The only dairy related technique to be awarded in the 30 years history of the national top science award.

Melamine in Milk Originally Imported from New Zealand

The whole tainted infant milk ordeal saw a sharp U-turn when it was discovered that ingredients imported from New Zealand had been mixed with melamine already. It has been confirmed by test of samples both in China, and those in New Zealand that 'lactoferrin', a key ingredient in infant formula produced in New Zealand, had been mixed with melamine.

New Zealand is the largest dairy producing country with most number of cows in the world, and manufactures around the world use lactoferrin produced in New Zealand to process infant formula. The suspected source was traced back to a company named Tatua. Tatua is one of the largest company of its kind. Retrospectively thinking, it's reasonable that among all the Chinese powder milk that had been found to be tainted by melamine, Sanlu, which New Zealand dairy producer Fonterra holds 43% share, is the worst.

It's such a shame that China did not test import dairy product carefully. As of today, it was reported melamine had caused at least 4 infant death, and tens of thousands babies hospitalized.

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority released a statement on September 24, 2008 that the level of melamine found in New Zealand product was low, probably came as "an unintended outcome of the manufacturing process".

Tatua's CEO Paul McGilvary said Tatua had voluntarily suspended its production, although he insisted that melamine found in lactoferrin produced by the New Zealand dairy producer was not a health risk to human. Tatua's board is to meet on September 30, 2008 to discuss the melamine issue.

Dead Horses Galloping

With the endless media attention on the poisonous powder milk incident, you would thought one more attempt to blame the government to be beating a dead horse. After all, even according to official figures, thousands of infants had been hospitalized, with hundreds of kidney failures and the death toll had been keep mounting. You know what? This magic world is full of surprise. Do you see that dead horse galloping?

1) The central Communism government told its citizen low doze of melamine is safe, citing US FDA research;
2) Local government issued an order that the Sanlu Dairy stopped reimbursing examination fees for infants who had drank Sanlu infant formula;
3) The Health Ministry, whose top official Mr. Gao Qiang had been named to lead the national task force in handling the poisonous powder milk scandal, issued an order that infants with kidney stones smaller than 4mm should not receive medical assistance.

The Prime Minister Mr. Wen Jiabao is coming to New York City to address the U.N. How shall we show our appreciation to Mr. Premier?

Nutritious Baby Milk

"So many 'N's in this diagram!" That is right, chemical melamine (also known as tripolycyanamide) has a lot of Nitrogen, actually 66% in its mass. That's why it is widely used in pet food produced in China, which killed quite several US cats and dogs last year. Melamine itself does not supply any nutrition, because it is insoluble and can not be used by animals. However, since food monitoring agencies use the percentage of Nitrogen contained in pet food to measure its nutrition level, Melamine is a popular added-on in the Chinese food industry. The ordeal ended with the execution of China's top food safety official Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu. Use of melamine is subsequently banned in the process of making pet food. Soon, innovative manufactures found new applications, in infant formula milk. With the 66% Nitrogen melamine, the baby milk tastes extremely nutritious. The only problem, though, is that it is insoluble.

It was reported today that unknown, but large number of infants were hospitalized for kidney stones. Because of the food structure of an infant, it's very rare to find kidney stones developed in this stage of life. Upon further study, all infants suffered from the disease had taken formula milk produced by a Hebei company, the Sanlu (Triple Deer) Diary Group in Shijiazhuang. The company recalled 700 tons of powdered milk that contains 5-6% of Melamine. Sanlu is one of the largest diary suppliers in the nation, with annual sells of $18 Billion. Sanlu is also the supplier of the China's ambitious space program.