Starbucks stops serving milk as China crisis snowballs

[jannyk]

Source: AFP

Starbucks stopped serving drinks with milk in many Chinese outlets Friday as a crisis over poisoned dairy products that have left four babies dead and thousands of others sick spiralled.

The move by the US coffee chain came amid a government-ordered mass recall of dairy products after an industrial chemical, initially reported to be only in milk powder, was also detected in regular milk, yoghurt and ice cream.

Supermarket shelves across the country were emptied of many products made by Chinese dairy giants Mengniu, Yili and Guangming after the government said the chemical melamine had been discovered in some of their regular milk.

Singapore, meanwhile, said it was suspending the import and sale of all milk and milk products from China after melamine was detected, as the latest in a string of scandals to hit the "Made in China" label snowballed

Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRF_D-fyC3tsFiTRnsgUGH-rHHBQ

[Purveyor]

1. IIRC, this chemical, melamine, is the same stuff that poisoned the dog food awhile back. eom

[SoCalDem]

2. yup.. the same stuff.. white powdery substance that mimicks other substances

and much cheaper..but deadly...bastards..

[sudopod]

3. What I don't understand

is how the fuck the dairy farms/processors thought they wouldn't get caught when people started dying.

[physioex]

4. Are you kidding....

There are few to no regulations in China. Why do all the companies move their manufacturing facilities not simply for cheap labor, but little to no environmental regulation. Also the enforcement officials are very corrupt and lax. It wasn't long ago that we were sold lead tainted toys from China.

[riverdeep]

5. This is what the GOP wants for this country.

No regulations whatsoever. I hate to say it, but glad that it was China itself that felt the brunt this time instead of exporting their poison to another country.

[Hekate]

6. The baby formula apparently showed up here in "ethnic" (probably Asian) grocery stores

IIRC I heard that on the radio; and that it was pulled from the shelves.

Back when all those pets were dying in the US, I said that human food was definitely next, because what they were hiding the melamine in is a component of human food as well.

You can read the labels of your food products and reject the ones "made in China", but a whole host of "ingredients" are sent here to be combined into things that are not so labeled.

We are in for a rough ride in this country.

Hekate

[LeftHander]

7. Milk from China???? WTF!!!! nt