China tightens dairy quality rules

China's State Council has tightened quality control regulations for the dairy industry - while authorities in Macau and Hong Kong report that several children have developed kidney stones from Chinese tainted milk.

The new regulations, effective since they were announced on Friday, tighten control over cattle breeding, the purchase of raw milk and the production and sale of dairy products, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The measures also increase punishments for those caught violating safety standards.

Contaminated milk powder, laced with the industrial chemical melamine, has been blamed for causing the deaths of four infants and sickening 54,000 others.

More than 10,000 children remained in hospital with eight of them in serious condition, the Health Ministry said.

On Friday, police arrested a dairy farmer accused of producing 600 tons of melamine-spiked protein powder, Xinhua said. Eight dairy farm owners and milk buyers were also arrested for purchasing the powder, it said.

The man, identified as Zhang Yujung, was arrested in his native northern Hebei province, where the company at the heart of the crisis, Sanlu Group Co, is based.

Police have so far arrested 36 people in connection with the scandal in Hebei, Xinhua said.

In Hong Kong, a 10-year-old boy was diagnosed with two kidney stones, the Department of Health said, raising the total number of children with milk-related kidney stones to seven in Hong Kong and Macau.

The boy has been drinking high-calcium, low-fat milk made by the Chinese dairy Yili Industrial Group Co everyday for the past six years, the health department said. He is in stable condition and does not require hospital treatment.

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?