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While China’s tainted milk scandal has not entirely run its course, a general picture is taking shape in the international media, showing that government accountability has become a major concern for the Chinese public. But the milk scandal is really just one reflection of deeper stresses and strains that China is feeling as the global economic slowdown takes effect.
The scandal began with an old dairyman’s trick: Chinese dairy farmers diluted their milk with water to produce more product at a lower cost. But this time, there was a twist. By measuring protein levels in samples, regulators nowadays can easily detect such a crude method of increasing output. So suppliers began injecting melamine, a relatively cheap industrial chemical used in plastics, into the milk to boost protein levels and cover their tracks.
China’s dairy farmers shipped their diluted, melamine-tainted milk to 22 major food-processing manufacturers, such as the Sanlu Group, which was responsible for producing the baby formula that caused the first sicknesses. These big food producers likely knew they were buying thinned milk, but they had no incentive to expose the suppliers, since forcing them to sell only undiluted milk would reduce supply and cause milk prices to go up, increasing producers’ input costs. The major food manufacturers may have given silent approval to their suppliers’ toxic practices; they allegedly connived with local government to prevent unfortunate revelations that could have interfered with the Beijing Olympics.
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