China makes first arrests in tainted milk probe

  By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - Chinese police arrested two men as part of an investigation into contaminated milk powder blamed for sickening almost 600 infants, state media reported Monday.

New Zealand's prime minister, meanwhile, said she told her government to inform the most senior officials in Beijing about the toxic milk problem earlier this month, at a time when provincial Chinese authorities appeared to be dragging their feet in ordering a recall.

The company that sold the contaminated milk powder, Sanlu Group Co., is 43 percent owned by New Zealand dairy farmers' group Fonterra.

Milk powder contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics, has caused about 580 babies to develop kidney stones, the China Daily newspaper reported. The paper quoted Li Changjiang, head of the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, as saying.

One baby has reportedly died. It was not immediately possible to confirm the number of sick infants with the administration. Authorities have seized 2,176 tons of powder from a Sanlu warehouse and recalled 8,218 tons already sent to market, Li Jinlu, a vice mayor of the city of Shijiazhuang where the company is based, told reporters Monday.

All the confiscated powder will be destroyed and medical teams were being sent to poor remote areas where residents purchased the powder, Li, who is not related to Li Changjiang, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Chinese officials have defended their response to the country's latest product safety disaster, saying they have detained 19 people and are questioning 78 others about how melamine was added to milk sold to Sanlu, China's biggest milk powder producer.

The 19 people who have been detained work at private milk collection and distribution centers, Li Changjiang said in the China Daily report. "We believe the contamination is more likely to have occurred at milk-collecting stations," Li said.

Police formally arrested a pair of brothers who were among those detained, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.

The brothers, surnamed Geng, allegedly ran a milk collection center in Hebei province where they are now suspected of adding melamine into raw milk to make the milk's protein level appear higher than it is and pass Sanlu's tests for nutritional value. The Geng brothers allegedly sold three tons of contaminated milk a day, the report said, citing Hebei police spokesman Shi Guizhong.

Chinese investigators have said melamine might have been added to the milk to fool quality tests after water was added to fraudulently increase the milk's volume. Melamine is rich in nitrogen, and standard tests for protein in food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.

The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine on Sunday deployed groups of officials to Hebei, Guangdong and Heilongjiang provinces and the Inner Mongolia region to inspect dairy companies. The teams will also work with local officials to remove all substandard milk powder from the market. At a quality supervision laboratory in Hebei, Li was shown more than 60 bags of white powder that police seized from distribution stations. Tests showed the powder contained high levels of melamine, the report said. "It's shocking," Li was quoted as saying. "It's a crime against the people." Inspectors will check the country's 175 baby milk food factories and their findings will be released within two days, Li said. In a conference call with reporters, Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier said China's Health Ministry had determined melamine was added by raw milk producers somewhere in the supply chain. "It is impossible to totally exclude sabotage of the product and that's where we are in this case," Ferrier said.

Beijing has blamed Sanlu Group for delays in warning the public about its contaminated product. Chinese officials say they were not alerted until last Monday, even though Sanlu received complaints as early as March and company tests in August found the milk powder contained melamine, a chemical used in plastics that is banned in food products.

Fonterra, the world's biggest milk trader, said Sunday it had urged Sanlu to recall the product as early as six weeks ago, despite a full public recall only being initiated last week.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Monday that she first learned about the issue on Sept. 5. Three days later she convened a meeting of senior ministers at which she ordered officials to leapfrog provincial officials in China and inform their superiors in Beijing.

Sanlu ordered a recall Thursday.

"We were the whistle blowers and they leapt in and ensured there was action on the ground," Clark told reporters.

"At a local level ... I think the first inclination was to try and put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall," she said.

The incident is an embarrassing failure for China's product safety system, which was overhauled in an attempt to restore consumer confidence after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.

The milk scandal is especially damaging because it involves a major Chinese food company and the government expects such companies to act as industry role models for safety and quality.

Shoddy and fake goods are common in China, and infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

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Associated Press writer Ray Lilley in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report