Food Safety Memo: Number of Chinese Children Sickened By Malamine-Contaminated Milk Doubles to Nearly 13,000...and Probably More

Latest breaking news on the issue

The Chinese government's Health Ministry has just posted on its website that the number of children sickened by baby formula tainted with the banned industrial chemical melamine has doubled to nearly 12,900. We suspect there are or will be far more than that since the Communist run and controlled Health Ministry tends to under-report such data whenever a serious public health incident occurs in the nation.

The Health Ministry's website also is reporting more than 80 percent of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger. Four children have died, the Chinese governmental agency also says on the website posting.

The first case of sickness from the contaminated milk also was identified over the weekend, according to a report from the Associated Press. A three year old girl in Hong Kong developed Kidney Stones after drinking Chinese milk products from the mainland, the Hong Kong government announced. They said she has been released from the hospital.

You can read (the latest) further details on the Chinese milk contamination food safety issue here.

Natural~Specialty Foods Memo thinks this is an important food safety issue globally. Although very little if any Chinese fluid or powdered milk is exported to the western world, Chinese powdered milk products are exported to other Asian countries and developing countries in Africa. So far the one case in Hong Kong is the only reported one outside of mainline China.

In addition to the health of the thousands of Chinese children, which is our primary concern with this food safety issue, it's also important because it's just another in a long list of food safety issues and problems in the last couple years involving Chinese produced food, grocery, per food and non food products such as children's toys.

If it hasn't been clear to global governmental and industry leaders in the past that there's a real problem with food and other products produced in China in terms of safety and quality standards, it should be clear now, with almost 13,000 Chinese children thus far reported sick from drinking milk laced with malamine.

When added to milk, malamine increases the percentage of proteins detected in the milk when tested by governmental authorities. Chinese milk producers are required to have a certain percentage of protein in the milk they sell. Adding the malamine allows for milk to pass those protein percentage thresholds while at the same time allowing the producer to make a higher profit because the cheap chemical malamine increases the protein content of the milk when added.

Nobody has yet said the malamine was added to the milk intentionally. However, although we don't know how it got there -- whether the farmers put it in intentionally despite knowing its effects or that perhaps chemical companies sold it to them and convinced the farmers it would do no harm, for example -- it's clear to us the malamine likely didn't fall into the milk on its own.

The parties responsible for the malamine getting into the milk need to be prosecuted swiftly. If found guilty they also should be made to pay restitution to every single family who's child gets sick from drinking the malamine-laced milk. And to those families who have or will lose children, like the four children who've died thus far -- those responsible should be made to pay restitution in the millions of dollars to each family.

The most serious charges here are murder, after all.

Our thoughts are with the families of those sick children. Milk is considered the most wholesome of beverages regardless of it source or type. In fact it's viewed as more than a beverage. It's the stuff of life -- produced by human woman and female animals to nourish their offspring. That fact gives milk of any kind very strong real and symbolic meaning.

Lacing such a beverage -- the stuff of life -- with malamine is a cruel and senseless thing to do, even if those who did it had no idea it could make children sick or kill them. Ignorance of biology as is ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Food & Kids Memo: The Content of our Character: Preventing Childhood Hunger in America; Saving Kids' Lives in the Developing World With Clean Water

The Share our Strength organization, a non-profit group dedicated to the perfect humanitarian goal of trying to make sure not one kid in America goes to sleep hungry, has launched its Great American Bake Sale promotion and fundraising effort.

The major sponsors of this year's Great American Bake Sale are C&H brand and Domino brand Sugar. Both brands, C&H and Domino, have recently moved into the organic, raw and all-natural sugar categories. The brands are marketed in supermarkets, mass merchandise stores, natural foods stores, and other retail venues.

The two sugar brands are providing financial support to the "bake off" fundraiser, as well as conducting media and in-store promotions, with monies from the promotions going to Share Our Strength, to feed hungry kids.

The Food Network television network and Family Circle magazine are the media sponsors for this worthy and important campaign being coordinated by Share Our Strength.

Food Network celebrity Sandra Lee is the spokesperson for the fundraising effort and the various events during the month of March. Ms. Lee hosts the popular Semi-Homemade cooking show on Food Network and is the author of 13 books on the topics of foods and lifestyles. The show teaches viewers how they can prepare high-quality and healthy "semi-homemade' dishes conveniently and fast.

In Sunday newspaper's throughout America today C&H and Domino brand sugar dropped full-page FSI's advertising the Great American Bake Sale, using the tagline: "Ending Childhood Hunger Can Be A Piece of Cake." The FSI's include "cents off" coupons for the sugar brands' various products at the top of the page, with the large advertisement below, including a listing of the group's website, which is http://www.greatamericanbakesale.org/.

Share Our Strength is holding events throughout the U.S. this month. Individuals and groups can go to the website and sign-up to hold bake sales and donate the proceeds to Share Our Strength to help make sure hungry kids are fed. Individuals, companies and groups also can fund a bake sale team with a donation if they don't want to hold an event themselves. Go to the website and click on the "Ways to Get Involved" link to get all the information on how you can support the group's efforts to help end childhood hunger in America.

Food and grocery industry business are participating by holding events as well. Restaurants across America are participating in the "Taste of the Nation" program, in which a percentage of profits for a certain period of time goes to feeding kids. There's also the "Great American Dine Out," which will happen in September. You can learn more about both programs on the Share Our Strength website.

Supermarkets also are getting into the act. In partnership with C&H brand and Domino brand sugar, retailers are setting-up in-store displays featuring various varieties of the sugar brand products, along with other baking ingredients and bake sale fundraiser point-of-purchase materials.

We can't think of a more important and noble effort than the goal of ending childhood hunger in America. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of kids go to sleep each night hungry in the U.S., the richest country in the world. Further, with food inflation and a stagnating economy in the U.S., more and more families are going without the food they need. Requests at food banks and food pantries have increased by at least 30% in the last year, and food needs continue to grow.

We ask our readers to donate or participate in Share Our Strength's efforts to feed kids. Doing all we can to ensure that no child go hungry if we can help it is a measure of the content of our character as people, as an industry and as a nation.

Proctor & Gamble's Pur Children's Safe Drinking Water Program

Consumer products and packaged goods giant Proctor & Gamble is launching a major international effort and promotion to literally help save the lives of children in less developed countries.

Every single day around the world, more than 4,000 children die from diseases caused by drinking unsafe water. To help end this horrible fact, Proctor & Gamble is the main corporate sponsor of the Children's Safe Drinking Water Program. [Learn all about the group's efforts here on its website.]

P&G has created a program involving its Pur Home Water Filtration System and the international safe drinking water for kids program.

The company distributed a multi-page free-standing insert (it's BrandSaver FSI) via Sunday newspapers in nearly every metropolitan U.S. city today announcing the program. For every Pur Water Filter coupon consumers redeem in March and April (another BrandSaver drop will happen next month), P&G will donate 1 liter of filtered drinking water to a child in the developing world. The goal for March and April is to be able to donate 50 million liters of safe, filtered water to developing world children.

The consumer products' and packaged goods giant also is supporting clean water for kids efforts through the program in a number of other ways. For example, it provides its Clean Water Kit, which is a portable water filtration kit that can be used by anybody anywhere, for free throughout the developing world. Using the simple kit, it takes just minutes to purify even the most seriously contaminated water. To date, the company says it has provided more than 500 million liters of pure filtered water by giving out the kits.

You can learn more about helping to save children's lives by simply helping to get them clean, pure water, something we in the developed world take for granted, here.

Instead of buying bottled water for a week or two, how about donating that amount--or more if you can afford it--to programs like this one which are working to save kids' lives. Such needless death truly challenges the content of our character as individuals, corporations and nations. We need to prevent the deaths of these 4,000 children who die each day because of a lack of clean water, and do so sooner rather than later.

You also can make an individual or corporate donation at the website here. Just click the donation link at the top of the screen. Find out more about Share Our Strength and childhood hunger in America here.