Security was exceptionally tight surrounding the sentencing in the tainted milk scandal in China. Police roadblocks were set up and grieving parents of the young victims were not allowed into the courtroom to hear the verdicts. Three people were sentenced to death (including a middleman who peddled the poison to milk stations) and several others were ordered behind bars, including the head of the dairy that knowingly produced the melamine-contaminated formula.
Tian Wenhua, who pleaded guilty, received a life sentence plus a $3.6M fine. Why did the court spare the life of the Sanlu dairy executive? We only know that the parents of the victims expressed outrage that the punishment did not fit the crime.
One mother, whose baby died from the milk, fell to the ground crying, arguing Wenhua should be shot to pay for the death of her child. Who among us can’t feel that mother’s pain? Keeping her out of the courtroom was just another way to control a population that exists in another kind of prison, one rife with human rights abuses in which women and young people (babies and protesting college students) are too often the victims.
At least, this time, the government admitted it is partly to blame for adulterated milk deaths. In an interview in Science Magazine, Premier Wen Jiabao was quoted as saying leaders were especially lax in “supervision and management.” He added that he would handle the incident sincerely and seriously “and draw deep lessons from it.”
We have to wonder about those lessons. Dairy suppliers have taken the rap for adding industrial melamine to watered-down milk contains nitrogen which feigns a high protein count and allows the product to pass quality control tests.
Melamine is a chemical used in the production of plastics, fertilizer, paint and adhesives. Ingesting a small amount poses might not impose a danger, but experts say in larger doses, it causes kidney stones and even kidney failure. Infants are most vulnerable to its effects.
As a report in MSNBC points out, these scandals have been a feature of Chinese daily life. Last year, the government vowed to overhaul the way it inspects what it sells after exports of toys, medicine, pet food and other products killed and sickened people and animals in North and South America.
We must be the food safety watchdogs. It’s hard to fathom that members of a society are so intent on making a profit they will actually poison their own people. The World Health Organization (WHO), which had criticized China’s response to containing the spread of the tainted milk, said we have to work together as an international community to protect global health security, which includes issues of climate change and food safety.
Image: Tambako the Jaguar