Two sentenced to death in China’s poisoned baby milk scandal

Two men involved in contaminating Chinese baby milk have been sentenced to death. The dairy company’s former chairwoman who covered-up the tainted baby formula to avoid bad publicity during August’s Beijing Olympics, was today given life in prison for making and selling fake products.

At least six children died from kidney stones and more than 300,000 were put in hospital after drinking the toxic dairy products last year. Grieving and angry parents waited outside on one of the coldest days of the winter to hear the verdicts from the closed-door session.

Middlemen who sell milk to dairies had added industrial chemical melamine, to raw milk to fool quality tests for protein content. The fiasco has left the image of the country's food industry in tatters. Tian Wenhua, Sanlu dairy’s former board chairwoman and general manager, was, Reuters reported, sentenced at the Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang, a gritty northern industrial town that is capital of northern Hebei Province. Two other defendants in the trial were given death sentences.

Three other former Sanlu executives were given jail terms of between five years and 15 years, reported Xinhua news agency. Theirs are among 21 sentences being handed down by the court in northern China, where Sanlu, part of a state-run venture, is based. Several other companies were also implicated.

Sixty-six year-old Tian Wenhua is the highest ranking official charged in the food safety crisis that highlighted corporate and official shortcomings and corruption Ms Tian had admitted that she knew of problems with her company’s products for months before she told authorities. She pleaded guilty, a move that in China is often rewarded with a lighter sentence.

Melamine, a white powder used to make plastic, is normally used to make Formica, floor tiles, whiteboards and kitchenware. It is rich in nitrogen and cheap. Adding it to sub-standard or watered-down milk makes the milk's protein level appear higher. This is because quality tests on milk estimate protein levels by measuring nitrogen content.

SOS children has been working in China since 1986 when the first children's community was built in Tianjin (also known as Tientsin), a large city about 100 km south east of Beijing. There are now nine SOS Children communities in China, which between them are home to more than 1000 children.

Written by Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children

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