The scandal following the revelation of the use of melamine, which causes acute kidney problems, in the production of milk powder created one of the greatest health crises in contemporary China. Since the SARS epidemic in 2003, the Chinese government has been particularly keen to deal with such questions in the field of public health.(l) This has given the population at large an opportunity to voice their legitimate concerns, usually forbidden in the strictly political field, by raising the question of responsibility at the highest levels. How could the Chinese government have allowed such a toxic contaminant to enter the supply lines of the milk trade? The foreign media seized on the to make a further dig at the Made in label, which had already been damaged by a scandal over lead-tainted Mattel toys. Internationally, the criticism was no longer levelled at the government alone, but at the whole culture of fraud in China.This crisis, in its general outlines, in the course of its development, and in the breadth of its potential consequences, is very similar to the contaminated blood affair that shook the socialist government in France in the early 1990s and led to one of the most notorious trials of the Fifth Republic.The following argument is based on my reading of articles about the scandal, from its uncovering in September 2008 to the trial of the Sanlu directors in January 2009, and on an anthropological hypothesis that has been tested in the light of other health crises. My main sources are reports in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) throughout the period in question, supplemented by several opinion polls in the French and Chinese media. These reveal three separate stages: the uncovering of the scandal, the enquiry into food safety standards, and the problematic legal resolution.The scandal Is uncoveredEvery health crisis begins with a whistleblower.At that point, the Chinese and international media began to raise questions about the nature of the toxic element in the powdered milk.