Poison in Baby Formula Kills and Injures Infants

If you're feeding your baby formula or powdered milk products, you definitely want to make sure they are not coming from China. The country is not approved to send in these products to America according to the FDA, but the products still come in under specialty importers. The issue is that milk farmers in China have been watering down their milk and hiding that fact with a chemical used in plastics and fire retardants called Melamine. The chemical makes random readings of protein content of the tampered with milk give false results, thus hiding the watered down crime. Unfortunately, over 500 babies (and counting) were the victims, and the first death has just been reported. This issue is, for now, confined to China, but the country cannot confirm whether any of this product has left the country...and how could they really. The authorities have detained about 100 suppliers whom they believe to be behind this. What amazes me is that this same problem came out a few months ago with pet food (hundreds of pets were killed worldwide by poisoned pet food from China), and apparently the food safety system is so lax in China that this could happen again, and so soon, and this time with human food.

This also brings up another issue. Should food really be tossed in with the rest of globalization? Fonterra is the largest dairy company in New Zealand, and I think the world. They have rolled-up all these small farmers in New Zealand and now they are moving to other parts of the world. The small farmers are morphing into large, multi-national agri-food businesses. At some point it is just an impossibility to control quality and protect against intentional tampering or accidental oversights. It makes me wonder how these baby illnesses caused by a company that Fonterra owns around 43% in, will pan out for their own brand back at home? Dairy and fresh foods are best grown and distributed locally...for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is food security, quality, and local economy. It seems to me that we are just asking for it by tasking countries like China to produce our dairy, and then blindly accepting their safety standards. It is so unfortunate that thousands (millions?) of innocent people and children have to be subjected to the greed and arrogance of companies like Sanlu, and by extension, Fonterra.