Talk:2008 Chinese milk scandal

Other products affected

There are reports in the South Korean media that tainted milk powder from China has also been used in various exported products containing chocolate, such as candy-bars and cookies, leading to the recall of those products in South Korea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.47.81.52 (talk) 04:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Use of Melamine in food

Right now, it reads like the use of melamine in food is banned only in China and US but I don't believe any country allows the use of melamine in food.--Revth (talk) 07:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Probably true, but the source article didn't mention any other country. Have slightly amended the mention. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:29, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Regardless of it's legal state, it's a textbook example of the sort of toxic adulterant-of-convenience generally seen only in the narcotics production industry these days. I feel its important to point out that melamine is not anything anyone would ever consider safe to ingest; the normal use of the stuff is to fireproof fabrics. They used it simply because it can be purchased dirt-cheap as a waste product of various industries and happens to produce an inaccurate and artificially high protein rating on the one protein test that China uses, which only tests raw nitrogen content. We should strive hard to keep WP:NPOV in mind, but nobody (even in China) is suggesting this is anything other than deliberate adulteration with a cheap, toxic chemical in order to meet government-mandated standards designed specifically to keep unethical dairies from watering down their milk. Seems like they failed. The fact that the dairies would have to deal with the obvious deleterious effects of melamine eventually was apparently a long-term gamble, based on the large and various number of dairies that tested positive for melamine. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 03:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • The reason why a large number of dairies were tested positive was probably due to the powdered milk supply. When the source ingredient is tainted, every product is affected. Kowloonese (talk) 20:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

RE: the banning of melamine in food. I do not see, in a fairly quick search, any sources for such a ban outside China and the U.S., but such a ban is implicit in articles like this one, from the International Herald Tribune: "Asian and African States ban China mil products" (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/24/asia/milkbox.php). The products are banned because of their possible melamine content. A useful source for a differently stated assertion, maybe?writingjen (talk) 21:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Milk for babies or just milk?

The news reports that I read said plainly that the melamine was added not to baby formula or powdered milk but to liquid milk from one or more dairies. The fault was committed at the dairies. In other words, liquid milk or other products containing milk could be contaminated as well. Are adults immune to kidney stones from this cause? --Monado (talk) 16:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• Indeed, it started with contamination at the leading supplier of infant formula, where the problem is still the most serious because of the impact on newborns, although it turns out that the entire chain is subject to widespread tampering. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

References to be improved

Can the editor who placed the {{refimprove}} tag be more specific what you meant by "some same line or statement may need additional source to reinforce it". As almost every sentence and certainly every paragraph is sourced, so specifically which statements you are referring to? Thanks, Ohconfucius (talk) 08:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Understanding the problem: Melamine + cyanuric acid

Currently this article doesn't mention cyanuric acid. I'll fix that, but just to clarify in less formal language: Melamine has very little toxicity. Cyanuric acid has very little toxicity. Both are industrial chemicals rich in nitrogen with a similar chemical structure. Added to protein-containing products they are both cheap, easy adulterants. There have been pet food outbreaks dating back at least to 2004, so this is not a very new idea.

The problem is that when both adulterants are consumed by the same person or animal, they link up and turn into a solid that blocks up the kidneys with stones and leads to fibrosis and failure. This has only been known since the 2007 pet food outbreak. The way they turn solid is to form a lattice that is something like a DNA base pair. [1] The interaction is very strong and forms a large structure, so tiny concentrations of both chemicals do something that large concentrations of either alone do not.

This is how we see statements that melamine is non-toxic next to statements that it is known to cause kidney stones. It also explains how people in industry with conniving but not homicidal intent could mock up food that they'd even feel safe to consume themselves, yet end up causing major outbreaks of poisoning anyway.

I think history will look back at this incident as a watershed event in the history of chemical pollution. For some time people have been worrying that exposing themselves to too many different "safe" chemicals not present in the natural environment can cause problems that are very hard to track down. Now we know this really can happen. Wnt (talk) 17:09, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject banner spam

An anonymous editor appears to have dedicated him-/herself to spamming talk pages with long lists of WikiProject banners. This goes against the good advice at WP:WikiProject Council/Guide#Article_tagging and WP:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject#Over-tagging, which recommends against speculatively spamming a long list of tangentially related WikiProjects to an article.

The editor often adds empty {{todo}} lists and usually {{talkheader}}, even to empty talk pages, which also violates the instructions for their use.

While WikiProject Medicine is normally happy to have articles obviously within its scope tagged by any editor, I have removed the WPMED tag from this article because it doesn't fall within the core "diseases and their treatments" scope of the project. WikiProject Medicine does not support the inappropriate medicalization of everyday life. (I may or may not have removed other banners at the same time.)

If you believe that there is a significant medical connection to this subject that I've overlooked, please do not re-add the banner. Instead, take these steps:

1. Read Is WPMED the correct WikiProject to support this article?
2. Read the instructions on the WPMED template.
3. Then leave a message at the doctors' mess to ask whether the article falls within the scope of the project.

I continue to attempt to communicate with this anon editor, but the IP address changes very frequently, and efforts so far appear to be unsuccessful. If the anon editor places the WPMED banner on this article again, I ask for your support in removing it again. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC) (who points out for this particular page: WPMED doesn't usually support current events, even if they involve people getting sick. We would support an article about an event that resulted in "lessons learned" for the field of medicine (as opposed to lessons learned for regulatory agencies, which seems more likely in this instance). Please feel free to follow the instructions above for another opinion if you happen to disagree with my view.)

Actually, as described in my comments above, there are some lessons learned from the pet food scandal for medicine, regarding a new mechanism of synergistic toxicity: a number of PubMed citations were generated, for example. While leaving the banner out from this article is likely the right call, it is possible that this article and the pet food article should eventually be merged into one heading ... as soon as someone can come up with a catchy name for kidney damage arising from the coprecipitation of melamine and cyanuric acid ;) ... and that should be under the medicine WikiProject. Wnt (talk) 21:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Spelling

I don't believe there is anything wrong with the word "summonsed", and I would appreciate it if those editors who keep on changing in thinking it is a spelling mistake to please stop. It is perfectly good English, as it comes from the legal word 'to summons' to be called by the authorities - past tense, add -ed, and you end up with "summonsed". Also, this article is in British English, and I believe 'centre' is an acceptable spelling of the word. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

At first I looked it up and decided it was OK, but now I've looked at the source and it says "summoned". We can't really be sure if "summonsed" changes the meaning or not, so best to be on the safe side and use the same word as the ref... which is British, so this isn't a UK/US English thing. NJGW (talk) 02:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Citation templates

I would like to thank the editor(s) who has gone and inserted citation templates for all the refs cited. However, please note that The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. (WP:CITE) That means they are not obligatory. Up to now, I have ensured that the citations are consistent, thus I do not believe the templates need to be added. In addition, the change of all the dates to ISO format is driving me mad: the template automatically links the dates so formatted, despite the fact that the linking of dates is now deprecated. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I know I don't own the article, but the changes which took place over the last 12 hours have included additions of citation templates - use of date-linking which has now been deprecated, unsourced and potentially controvertial statements, "corrections" of British English spellings, wikilinking of 4 Chinese words to wiktionary, and the reintroduction of a dispute of whether 3 or 4 children have died, whilst the two cited sources both say 4. I have therefore reverted most of these. There may be collateral damage, for which I apologise. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"Collateral damage" is not really OK when you're talking about such a mass revision. I worked on some of the issues in the lead, and any other changes should be taken one at a time (unfortunate, but necessary so we can all see what's being done). Anything that you consider dubious really has to be tagged and/or mentioned here, and linked dates is no reason to remove the citation templates (which may be required if this is ever to become a GA or FA). I would like to point out that you are correct in stating that dates should not be linked, the English should remain in the same version as the article was started in, and the use of Chinese may be out of place (perhaps the concern is that there's more news on this page that available in China?!). NJGW (talk) 04:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I was merely apologising in advance for the collateral damage which may have been caused due to my revision, but that does not mean I did not take care in ensuring that the vast majority of the other changes which I did not comment on were not incorporated. If you are really that insistent, I will make those changes one by one, but I really do object to the templates, especially the date-linking. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused, I don't see any date linking right now. NJGW (talk) 04:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Because they are part of the auto-formatting in the citation templates, the date links all appear in the reference section. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's an issue for the template, not for this article. I'll see what I can do about that. Are there any other issues with using the templates besides that? NJGW (talk) 04:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• The templates only ensure some consistency, which depends on editors consistently filling in the relevant fields. It does not deliver consistent results otherwise. I have gone and lined up all the refs with the key fields so that they were consistently presented, and I don't really see the need for blanket use of the template when it is not required anywhere in wikipedia. None of this would have happened if I don't sleep. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 04:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

But why are you removing them? We need to reach an agreement before you continue. NJGW (talk) 05:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Well, I only removed one, and that's because I replaced the entire paragraph. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

So you're not planning on going through and systematically removing them, right??? NJGW (talk) 05:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Well, the thought had crossed my mind. I'm certainly not putting any back, if that was your question. FYI, I prefer the top-down approach rather than bottom up ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 05:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, given that you appear to be up against consensus here, maybe you shouldn't do that. Maybe it would help if you explained why, other than the linked dates, you don't like the use of the templates. I still don't fully understand what you're saying there. NJGW (talk) 05:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Neither do I. And this has happened more than once in our discussion. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 05:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• This is a style matter, and these changes are being forced against the wishes of a major contributor to the article. I do not think it is entirely what consensus is about. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

This is precisely what consensus is about. It doesn't matter who did the most contributions, but what the community decides. Please help us understand your point of view on this issue. NJGW (talk) 05:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't helping... that's a British source using the word summoned. Are you sure you're not changing the meaning? NJGW (talk) 05:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Smile icon isn't helpful here, you're seriously owning the article even you denied that. And the scenario starting to go like what WP:OWN samples. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 05:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• "It is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one guideline-defined style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so; for example, it is not productive to change from British to American spelling unless the article concerns an American topic. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable." WP:MOS Ohconfucius (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The substantial reason I use the cite templates is for better maintenance and unification of citation layout of such large article. Date input other than ISO 8601 is acceptable for the date parameter and this will eliminate the date-link automatically. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 05:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally I favor the use of citation templates, specifically {{Citation}}—often in partnership with {{Harvnb}} (see Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods for some detail on that). However, I am conscious of the WP:CITE guideline, which says in part, "Each article should use the same method throughout—if an article already has some citations, an editor should adopt the method already in use or seek consensus before changing it." Where I see a particular citation style is well-established and consistently used in an article, I try to either respect that or to seek prior consensus before making sweeping changes. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay I made the change before making consensus w/o the knowledge of that guideline. I apologize for this one. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 07:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I had an issue with the way NJGW just went ahead and rapidly reverted my edits as if I was a vandal, and then continued to intimidate and fight me, despite the guidelines saying what was acceptable and not. I was dearly tempted to press the undo button again, but will now respect the templates rather than fiddle about trying to undo them. I will continue to format my in-line citations to display the consistent format. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no mention of deprecation of ISO 8601 in its WP article, it sounds like your personal opinion. Anyway your mind is inflexible with the citation template now. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• All I have to say is that a date, whether in dd mmmm yy, mm dd yy, or yy-mm-dd are still dates. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I want a reliable source for the "deprecation of ISO 8601" thing rather than hearing you beat around the bush. If you disagree with the date-linking, making request in template talk: citeweb is more reasonable. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I just made that request per MOS:UNLINKDATES. NJGW (talk) 04:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Dates in formats dd mmmm yy, mm dd yy are not linked, so you could in fact change these back to remove the linking. Changing these back from ISO individually will take you a good half hour, so you might as well get rid of the templates altogether with one swift change back to my last version before it was reverted. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 05:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

How is that consensus building? We're still waiting for an explanation about why you think this goes beyond date linking. If it's a date linking issue you should wait for the requests at talk:Tony1 and Template:Citation to be looked at. If it's not a date linking issue you really need to explain what you're thinking. NJGW (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• "Because templates can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus." WP:CITE Ohconfucius (talk) 05:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

So my contribution other than the date-link and the cite layout were reverted as well. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 05:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Please can you be more specific? Ohconfucius (talk) 05:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you once specified to me the reason for deprecation of ISO 8601? -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 06:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I would appreciate it if you didn't answer a question with another question. On the subject of ISO, I will not say anything more than: "what looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is a duck." Surprise, surprise! Ohconfucius (talk) 06:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry Ohconfucius, but you have answered a question with a question first. I have asked you several times now, and you remain very cryptic about your reasoning. And what in the world is the quacking reference to? Please, no more hyperbole. NJGW (talk) 06:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I apologise for not being more clear: What I meant was a date is a date, regardless of its format. I don't accept that the deprecation of wikilinking dates should be able to pass by the back door. As to my objection to the change over to citation templates, the in-line references were all consistent. Furthermore, WP:CITE says: "Because templates can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus." (the bold was not mine) I think that is reasoning enough for going back to the version before Sameboat - 同舟 came in, which was predominantly without templates. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Have I no reason? Once more the date-link of cite templates can be bypassed by entering non-ISO date format. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 06:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I finally found the place to go to support the delinking of autoformatted dates:Wikipedia_talk:Citation_templates#De-linking_dates. As for the the citation style, unless I'm mistaken, that refers to changing from APA to MLA or something along those lines, not changing from random untemplated to templated style. NJGW (talk) 06:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• When WP:CITE says clearly there is no obligation to use templates or not, giving precedence to consistency of style, it makes perfect sense to me that it covers not just the type of template, but its absence vs presence as well. As the in-line refs were largely consistent, I would argue there was no good reason to change. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

However, in the interest of consistency, we now have three editors favoring the citation templates. I believe we are moving towards consensus. NJGW (talk) 06:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• That is a red herring, and I think you probably know it. The citations were largely consistent before they were put in. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is not a red herring, and mass reverting is not a solution. NJGW (talk) 07:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• No, but your use of consistency to justify the change is. The change was done against the guideline recommendations not to disturb the prevailing style formatting, in the space of a few hours while the main contributor was away. You are merely trying to outvote me because you cannot accept my style preference. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry you see it that way. What distinctive style of citations do you have in mind? MLA or APA? NJGW (talk) 07:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• The result I was aiming for was the output given by the {{tl:cite}} templates, whatever it is, but without using the template. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

2004 baby milk scandal?

This states (6 paragraphs from the bottom) that 13 babies died in a similar scandal in 2004. Anybody know more? Should it have a section here? Probably deserves its own article in fact - if there is enough information out there of course (we all know how good China is at cover-ups). Malick78 (talk) 07:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

see bbc news asia75.144.215.110 (talk) 20:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#2004_baby_milk_scandal.3F

I understand from reading Chinese webpages that Sanlu was named as one of the firms involved in that 2004 incident. However after "further investigation" their name was cleared and it was blamed on "fake Sanlu" milk.

I have been looking for a wikipedia article on "Trustworthiness of the Chinese society", could not find it. Anyone want to start one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.240.39.149 (talk) 07:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Why is a certain editor so hell-bent on copying substantial chunks of text from sources and pasting them into this article, daring to claim that published news articles are in the public domain? Repeated reinsertion of copyrighted material is considered vandalism, so this has to stop. Plagiarism is so uncool - it's much less boring being original! Ohconfucius (talk) 09:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC) You don´t have the proves?? 83.148.238.194 (talk) 15:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Formaldehyde and Bacteria

"Experts have expressed skepticism that so many farmers would know to add melamine to milk as the chemical is not water-soluble and must be mixed with formaldehyde or another chemical before it can be dissolved in milk." [2] and "Sanlu’s older and younger infant formulas contained enterobacter sakazakii as well as the toxic melamine." [3] Looking for more sources now. Regards. FangedFaerie (Talk | Edits) 17:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• Interesting, that about the formaldehyde. It had crossed my mind that even if it was first dissolved in formalin, the organic mixture still would have to be blended with the milk. Formalin is highly toxic to the liver. As for the Epoch Times, I would be highly sceptical of anything they write. They must be rubbing their hands in glee now as they hate the Chinese Communist Party so much. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry about misplacing my comment. Anyway, I can't find anything further, but I'll keep an eye on the news. Regards. FangedFaerie (Talk | Edits) 17:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea about bias there, so I'll take your word for it. That said, that particular bacterium is a relatively common contaminant in powdered baby milk formulas. [4] And the story has been repeated here, but this is a blog and it might only qualify as rumor. Regards. FangedFaerie (Talk | Edits) 16:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

MORE INFO: The New Zealand Herald talks about the bacteria in the same products here, and InsideChinaToday.net discusses it here. Regards. FangedFaerie (Talk | Edits) 21:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Section on EFSA

I cannot see why the news about EFSA deserves to be in its very own section, interrupting the logic and flow of the news around the world. Of course it's exceptional news, as it is to China and all the affected people and territories. What is more, the EFSA pronouncement is a pre-emptive warning from the EFSA, based on a worse-case analysis. At the moment, it's totally hypothetical. But wait, I'm not saying the information does not belong, just that a separate section is not warranted. After all, the EFSA is the supra-national body in Europe.

Also, I also believe the logo should not be used here as it is copyrighted. This is not an article about the EFSA, and therefore cannot be justified under fair use. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The subsections of "Outside mainland China" look really dull, I prefer to merge some of the nations/organizations with similar statements/reactions except for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau where are primarily the affected areas outside of Mainland China. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 08:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Most countries are talking about much the same products, the same bans and the same impact, and can probably be grouped together. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Products affected section?

In my opinion, this article can be further clarified if a Affected Products/companies section is added. Can someone help in compiling the list of produce and companies? --Kelvin_HO^{Wiknerd(talk)} 11:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• A table of the identified products, with test results currently resides at a sub-page of the former namespace: 2008 baby milk scandal/AQSIQ Ohconfucius (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Title

I think the title needs to be more descriptive (location, type of event) and less POV ("scandal" is inherently POV). The convention for article naming seems to be to use the word "incident", e.g. 2008 Khurcha incident or January 2008 Société Générale trading loss incident. Something like 2008 China infant formula contamination incident, 2008 China milk contamination incident or similar. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 02:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's more than baby milk, so maybe 2008 Chinese dairy product incident is more appropriate. Objections? NJGW (talk) 02:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that is an appropriate change, considering the precedent from other articles. nneonneo ^talk 03:07, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

2008 Chinese dairy product contamination incident is a bit more descriptive. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 03:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• It's a bit sensationalist, but I don't think there is any danger of violating WP:NPOV, seeing as almost everybody, including Xinhua has called it a "scandal". Ohconfucius (talk) 05:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Technically, this was not contamination, but adulteration - not an inadvertent act but a deliberate one. I also dislike the term "scandal" because it violates NPOV to the other side than suggested above. An actor with two mistresses - that's a scandal. This might be more adequately described as baby milk poisoning or baby milk deaths. I likewise dislike the term "incident" because it suggests one single incidence. Sanlu poisoning a batch of milk, is an incident. Seventeen companies distributing adulterated milk after the same thing happened in 2004? I don't think so. Wnt (talk) 18:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, "scandal" should be used for celebrities (sex) affair. But "contamination" doesn't hint the manner whether deliberately or accidentaly. I support 2008 Chinese dairy product contamination incident. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• With more than 50,000 children hospitalized, and multi-national boycott, it looks more and more a disaster in the making. I support 2008 Chinese dairy adulteration disaster Arilang1234 (talk) 10:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No scandal means people violating public moral in a way that creates an uproar. This is very much a scandal. There is no point in discussing this Carewolf (talk) 11:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I have renamed it to a more proper Title so it can concide with the 2007 Chinese Export Recalls at the Made in China page which im going to add this.

Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceecookie (talk • contribs) 12:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• In case you have not been watching, there is an embryonic debate on this subject [discussion now reunited]. I don't think we are at a consensus yet. I don't want to see a repeat of what happened to 2008 stabbings at Beijing Drum Tower (see discussion here). Furthermore, the title chosen is incorrectly capitalised, but I would suggest to no change the name again until we come to some sort of consensus. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• It looks more and more like an international uproar then a local scandal. Definitely it is becoming an international boycott of China produced food ingredients, no one will know how long the boycott is going to last, because Chinese have to put up with poison in their food, but we don't have to.Arilang1234 (talk) 01:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
• WHO on 26 September called it a "food crisis", it is not restricted to milk only.Arilang1234 (talk) 16:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I had been thinking "crisis" was a good word to use. I support 2008 Chinese food adulteration crisis. Wnt (talk) 17:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

While WP is not censored, I think a title without the second noun at the end would also work: We could keep it simple, and bypass all arguments as to whether it is a scandal, crisis, débâcle, imbroglio, calamity, disaster, catastrophe, or simply an incident - which is the most "Chinese". Although I would personally believe scandal is as appropriate a word as any, having been used extensively by almost all the sources you come across, 'Contamination' itself is a noun which could stand on its own in the title: 2008 Chinese dairy contamination. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with removing 'scandal' from the title and using "Incident" (to go along with other articles' precedent) or "Contamination". To add to the milk/dairy discussion, we could also use Melamine, another common word used during the... uh... incident. Simplylala (talk) 12:23, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Needs info on the resurgence in interest in breastfeeding by Chinese

Here are some good links to articles on the regenerated interest in breastfeeding in China in the midst of the scandal for someone who has the time and interest to add this info to the article:

Chinese relearn merits of breastfeeding

WHO Recommends Breastfeeding Amid Tainted Milk Scandal

Got Milk? Chinese Crisis Creates A Market for Human Alternatives

Chinese milk scandal could boost Breastfeeding

UN says China's milk scare could boost breastfeeding

Behind the Tainted Formula Scandal...Chinese Women Don't Like Breastfeeding

-Cab88 (talk) 08:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Melamine as a by-product?

Recently, there is a Chinese email floating around the Internet. The email was written by an anonymous author. He (she?) claims to be a worker in the dairy industry and he is a chemist at one of the milk collection stations. He explained how the supply chain and the dairy companies operate. He further speculated what actually have happened. It is a lengthy email and I don't have the skill to translate the whole thing here. I'll just highlight a few key points he raised:
1. The farmers are paid by the quality and volume of the milk. The higher the protein contents in the milk, the better they are paid.
2. The test for protein content only measures the nitrogen level, not real protein content.
3. Melamine is a very expensive chemical and not easy to mix with water. One has to bend over backward to get the melamine into the milk.
4. Urea is common agricultural fertilizer assessable to all farmers.
5. Urea can raise the nitrogen reading in lab test, hence the farmers add water and the fertilizer to the milk in order to get higher pay.
6. During powder milk production, the liquid milk is mistified(?) in a high heat chamber to turn the liquid into powder.
7. In high heat, urea turns into melamine, see Melamine#Synthesis.
According to his theory, the melamine is a by-product of the "additive".

I'm not a chemist, I'll leave this to the experts to verify.

Kowloonese (talk) 20:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I have read it too, but with a bit of bio-chemistry knowledge behind me(had worked in bio-chem lab before), I think that speculation is too simple, to say the least. I think the Caijin report makes more sense, they simply use 2nd grade impure melamine and mix it with milk powder.If you check the ppm, you can see only milk powder scores high ppm of melamine, whereas liquid milk has low ppm, because melamine's low solubility.Arilang1234 (talk) 09:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• • But if urea was mixed into liquid milk, then test of melamine should be low because melamine didn't form until the milk powder production process. Besides, it is not difficult to feed some melamine-free, but urea-laden milk into the milk powder machine to see if melamine shows up as end product. Kowloonese (talk) 06:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That email is complete nonsense from a chemical standpoint. Cacycle (talk) 04:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I may be naive, but it does not sound like nonsense. At least the detailed email is more convincing than your one sentence claim. At least point #7 checked out okay according to the chemical equations in the wikipedia article. Point #3 and #4 can be verified in other websites too. Please give more details on how you come up with such conclusion. If you think the chemical reaction is impossible, please edit out the same nonsense from Melamine#Synthesis too. Kowloonese (talk) 06:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

• • The most imortant factor here is "Chemical Reaction", and especially when "Organic Chemical Reaction" is involved, which is much more complex than "In-organic Chemical Reaction"(Burning of wood is a chemical reaction C+O2=CO2)

For "Organic Chemical Reaction" to occur, you need to have precise (1) temperature (2) pressure (3) precise(pure) and correct amounts of reagents (4) pure form of catalyst to speed up the rate of reaction, otherwise the reaction will take too long to be feasible (5) uncontaminated container (must be stainless steel). The process described in the e-mail is a physical reaction(milk turned into milk powder, a simple drying process), not a chemical reaction. I hope my answer can clear things up a bit.Arilang1234 (talk) 12:23, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

All Continents?

Does this include Antarctica? BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 03:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

• Why not? There are scientists living there some part of the years,(Chinese scientists) they may well have consumed melamine milk, it wouldn't surprised me.Arilang1234 (talk) 01:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Products banned

I inserted a column in the table of countries to show products which were banned in each country. There have been some changes thereto which I believe may not be fully justified. I think that insertion of a 'various products' where the action was a blanket ban would be wholly inappropriate; also, listing of bans which took place without any testing whatsoever would both detract from the value of the information contained in the box. For it to be the most informative, I believe the column show the bans which resulted from positive tests in the countries or regions and would exclude preventative bans (as discouraged by the WHO). Blanket and speculative bans would be dealt with in the 'Reaction' column. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:09, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, while we are at it, White Rabbit is beginning to appear in almost every row in the table. Let's take it out from the table throughout, and write about it in more general terms in the section above, as it has been affected everywhere it was officially and unofficially exported to. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

HK victims, etc

There should be coverage about the victims outside of China, since there have been victims outside of "communist China". [5] [6] This scandal has global victims. This shouldn't just be lumped into "reactions" since they are not reactions, they are victims, and should be in a separate section. 70.51.10.188 (talk) 01:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

• I have now put the HK/Macau/Taiwan victims into the Toll section. I think the real issue for these 3 places is the burden on health authorities which have had to deal with thousands upon thousands of worried parents, and have administered tens of thousands of tests/examinations. These I have left in the 'impact' section. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Toll

Here, it says that the number of victims is probably 75,000 in Beijing alone and that the "official number is far too low". Malick78 (talk) 16:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• The official version is that children in 74,000 families may have consumed contaminated milk at some point. It does not translate into that number which need medical attention. Having said that, I ask why officials are giving out this information, given their usual secrecy. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

problem

Well didn't they say they're tracking down who did this? Negabandit86 (talk) 21:10, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Melamine now found in eggs

Eggs in Hong Kong from China have been reported in the news media, of having been found contaminated with melamine. I was wondering whether if it tests in foodstuffs in other countries, we might have to change the article title to 2008 Chinese food scandal. ZhaoHong (talk) 06:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• We might have to change the title. The biggest 'bomb' so far is undoubtedly the milk powder (from Sanlu). If this does spread much more, I would broaden the title. I would leave it for now. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• No, not a scandal anymore, a disaster, and going to be a catastrophe.Arilang1234 (talk) 01:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
  • See Hanwei Group if you want to integrate anything. Malick78 (talk) 08:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Halloween candy.

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3dbBQPIFf0

Followup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUB79WJ9ktQ

Another follow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-e1bIew5g

Article split

I noticed a part of the article has once again been split off to International Reaction to the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal, ostensibly because there was some sort of consensus to keep. That was back in October, and I merged the articles following which there was no opposition. I had contemplated splitting off the article because of its length, but my difficulty is doing so without detriment to the structure. I disagree with the split carried out today: note that the current title of the demerged article poorly describes the content, for there is a huge chunk about other countries (European Union, USFDA, other third parties etc) which was left in the main article. Making a surgical excision along 'international reaction' lines would harm its coherence. I would appreciate any comments on how to structure both articles, so as to make them relevant, coherent and complementary. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Notice there wasn't a clear consensus in the discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Reaction to the 2008 Dairy Scandal to merge the material to the main article which you did on your own accord in October. If you take note of the wording of some of posters / editors there was a call to merge and cut the material from the main article to the off-shoot as the main article was becoming too big and unwieldy to read and manage. As for the chunk of information you mentioned. eg. European Union, USFDA, these are international groups and third parties. So feel free to make any subheadings to complement the heading Outside Mainland China.

Roman888 (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I object strongly to the rather arrogant tone of your message. I found your "So feel free to make any subheadings to complement the heading Outside Mainland China" to be rather condescending. I was not asking you for permission to move the relevant sections. The merger is ancient history, and I note that you happily contributed to the article in its merged state without comment. The main point was not about what I did back then, but how we move this article forwards now, and unless you have any better suggestions, I would prefer to revert your edits and to later demerge the article along perhaps different lines to preserve the coherence. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Whether you found my comments arrogant or condescending is irrelevant. Since you look at this article as your personal fiefdom and domain, my advice to you would be to add a few subheadings to the heading Outside Mainland China. If you like I can make the amendments or the necessary subheadings to the international groupings to preserve the coherence of the article that you so want. As I mentioned before the main article is very long and unwieldy, from a standpoint of any new reader which was the main purpose of the original discussion.Roman888 (talk) 12:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I have redirected the split back to this article. There was a rough consensus for the original merger, then defeated by the unilateral splitting undertaken by Roman888. The split article has not been substantively edited since, suggesting that it is probably even more out of date and inaccurate than it was when the split occurred. Further, there is reason to believe that much of the content is copyright violations; I've had a brief check through and found some close paraphrasing. User:Roman888 has now been indefinitely blocked for massive copyright violations. So subject to any disagreement here, I've done the redirect. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• I agree. All we really need to know is that contaminate products found their way around the world. The actions taken by some governments concerned, in the grand scheme of things, very few products. And yes, WP:COPYVIO was an issue I had with Roman since the beginning. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Recent development

Shanghai Daily, 12 Feb 2009, writes about about an ongoing investigation "to find out whether Dumex, the powder-milk unit of France's Danone Group, had produced milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine." ... "Dumex said on its Chinese Website that it sold the most baby milk powder in China in 2005 and 2006 in terms of volume and revenue."

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200902/20090212/article_390770.htm

I'm just throwing this out there. Have there been more incidents of this recently that should be added to the article? I don't have a source to cite here but I was in China on business in May 2013, and had a few interesting conversations about this with colleagues over there. It sounded recent, like there have been more incidents than just the 2008 and 2009-2010 chapters of this tale. Also, it sounded like a lot more happened to the original whistleblower before his death and the Chinese definitely think the gov't was behind it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.92.2 (talk) 15:05, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

2009-2010 Incidents

Given the late 2009, early 2010 incidents at two dairies widely separated geographically, we may want to consider retitling the article. I, for one, am still hoping that these are isolated incidents rather than an indication of widespread contamination that might harm many people. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Why aren't Nestle named in this entry?

Nestle milk products have been found been to contain melamine, and have been pulled from shelves, not only in China but also in Taiwan in October 2008 and Saudi Arabia in December 2008.

On 21 September, 2008, Nestle issued this statement:

"Since the safety of consumers is of utmost importance to the company, Nestlé once again expresses confidence that none of its products in China is made from milk adulterated with melamine." -- from Nestle's Web site: http://www.nestle.com/MediaCenter/PressReleases/AllPressReleases/No+melamine+adulteration.htm

On another page on their own site, they discuss the 3 December recall of a Nestle product from Saudi Arabi because authorities found trace levels of melamine: http://www.nestle.com/MediaCenter/SpeechesAndStatements/AllSpeechesAndStatements/Melamine+-+Saudi+Arabia.htm

In the statement, Nestle admits that its products do contain melamine: "The results were well below the limits defined by a number of governments, including Canada, New Zealand, the European Union, and by international organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO)." Pmkate (talk) 05:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)kate —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmkate (talk • contribs) 04:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Info from chinese version?

I found that the chinese article from the page has some useful info. Translated with google chrome it says:

Contaminated dairy products in China in 2008(or2008 Chinese milk powder contamination,toxic milk incident in China in 2008,the milk scandal in China in 2008) was a quality problem in China. The incident is a lot of foodSanlu Groupmilk powder produced bythe babywas found to havekidney stones, and then in its milk powder was foundchemicalsmelamine.[1][2][3]According to Chinese official figures, as of 2008September 21, from the use of infant formula and outpatient consultation and treatment of infants and young children have recovered total 39,965 people, there are 12,892 people are hospitalized , 1,579 people had been cured and discharged, died 4,[4]also endedSeptember 25,Hong Kong,there are 5 people,the Macaopeople have a diagnosed illness.[5][6]has aroused great concern and the nationaldairysafety concerns. ChinaAQSIQannounced on the domestic manufacturers of dairy products of melamine in infant formula test report, the rapid deterioration of the incident, includingYili,Mengniu,Bright,San YuanandAshleymanufacturers, including 69 batches of 22 Melamine detected in both products.[7]The incident also hitChinese-mademerchandise credit, many countries banned Chinesedairyimports. September 24, the AQSIQ said that the milk incident has been brought under control, after September 14 a new production of yogurt, pasteurized milk, sterilized milk and other major varieties of liquid milk samples in the sample testing melamine were not detected melamine.[8]

I'm asuming this is open-source, it's from wikipedia itself, and there may be some good info. Jasonxu98 (talk) 00:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Time references?

There are quite a number of indeterminate time references that need to be cleaned up. For instance "the past two years" appears several times, and there's a reference to something that happened "on Monday," rather than giving a specific date. For clarity's sake, this should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.0.33.206 (talk) 21:51, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Western media "speculate"?

"Western media speculated China's desire for a perfect summer Olympics contributed to the delayed recall of the baby milk, citing a guideline allegedly issued to Chinese media that reporting food safety issues, such as cancer-causing mineral water, was "off-limits"" the article says.

In other places I read this:

"According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, a 21-point coverage directive issued by the Central Propaganda Department in August included this edict to domestic media: “All food safety issues [are] off-limits.”

You want to tell me that the South China Morning Post is "western media"? This newspaper is known as "pro-Beijing" as you can read in the Wikipedia-article. --13Peewit (talk) 22:32, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

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Resultant Importing of Infant Formula

The 2008 Chinese milk scandal has been partly associated with the significant increase in import of Infant formula and other organic and foreign milk products to China, which has been very significant, particularly for companies such as Bellamy's Australia and The a2 Milk Company which have stepped up to supply high quality safe products to China; but there is practically no mention of this in the article. It's also had a significant resulting impact on supply of Infant formula in Australia consequently. -- Aeonx (talk) 03:29, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Some News References: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4349627.htm

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/blogs/infant-milk-formula-shortage-why-ultimately-this-is-a-good-thing/news-story/6d5718a6df978933a2d58c47abf0d0a3

• Yes, an angle that perhaps deserves a mention. This is probably the longest-lasting after effect of the scandal because people have completely lost trust in the government measures and in locally sold brands. Endemic smuggling across the Shenzhen/HK border, Chinese company buying out French milk powder producer, stories of legions Chinese emigrés and disapora sending milk powder back to relatives in China. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 13:32, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA22 - Sect 200 - Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 September 2022 and 8 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): VenusL (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by VenusL (talk) 11:09, 26 November 2022 (UTC)