Milk Scandal Research Articles

An AcciMap approach to analyse the Chinese melamine milk scandal

PurposeThe 2008 Chinese melamine milk scandal resulted in six reported fatalities and affected around 300,000 children, of whom 54,000 were hospitalised. Previous studies have used linear approaches to examine the root causes of the melamine milk scandal.Design/methodology/approachIn the present study, we applied a systems approach to the melamine milk scandal to identify the complex systems-level failures across the supply chain leading to the incident and why food fraud incidents such as this occurred in the dairy sector. Additionally, systemic failures associated with food fraud vulnerability factors were considered (i.e. opportunities, motivation and control measures).Findings48 contributory factors of influence were identified and grouped across six sociotechnical levels across the Chinese dairy system, from government to equipment and surroundings. Lack of vertical integration (processes and communication) contributed to the failure. When viewed from a broader perspective, the melamine milk scandal can be linked to a series of human errors and organisational issues associated with government bodies, the dairy supply chain, individual organisations and management decisions and individual actions of staff or processes.Practical implicationsThis approach is of value to policymakers and the industry as it supports public health investigations of food fraud incidents and proactive food safety management.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse a food safety or fraud incident using the AcciMap approach and the food fraud vulnerability assessment (FFVA) technique. AcciMap analysis is applied to both unintentional and intentional aspects of the incident.

How can trade partners be chosen when facing food scandals? China's milk scandal as a natural experiment

AbstractUsing China's milk scandal as a natural experiment, this paper explores whether the countries of origin and export destinations have the same responses to the original country's food scandal. Our difference‐in‐difference estimation shows that the outbreak of China's milk scandal had asymmetric impacts on China's total imports (increased by 23.4%) and exports (sharply dropped by 65.8%). The results further show that China's milk scandal contributed to import increases from European and Oceanian countries. Moreover, China's milk scandal worsened exports, mainly those going to neighbouring Asian regions but increased exports to Oceania. A product quality index is constructed to explain this finding. Intuitively, consumers' perceived quality of Chinese products declined, and they tended to consume products from other countries. The lower the product quality was with those in China, the lower the perceived quality and safety, thereby affecting demand. During the scandal, Chinese consumers tended to buy high‐quality dairy products from Europe and Oceania rather than the perceived unreliable dairy products produced by China or neighbouring countries. We conclude that product quality plays a key role in imports and exports when facing food scandals.

Urinary Excretion of Cyanuric Acid in Association with Urolithiasis: A Matched Case-Control Study in Shanghai Adults.

Melamine (MEL) has raised human concern since the 2008 milk scandal. Co-exposure to MEL and one of its analogues, cyanuric acid (CYA), has been reported to have a synergistic effect on promoting urolithiasis. However, few epidemiological studies have reported urolithiasis in association with exposure to CYA based on our knowledge. We therefore conducted a case-control study to investigate whether cases of urolithiasis had higher excretion of urinary CYA than the controls. Spot urine samples from 70 adult cases and first-morning urine samples from 70 controls (matched by age and sex) were collected for the measurement of MEL, CYA, and other two analogues in urine. The case group also had 2.81-fold higher concentration of urinary CYA than the control group (34.87 versus 12.43 ng/mL, p-value < 0.001). Multivariate conditional logistic regression models adjusting potential confounders of personal characteristics identified the risk factor of urinary CYA as a continuous variable with odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval, 95%CI) of 1.11 (1.02–1.21) (p-value = 0.021) and having meals at restaurants with OR of 5.71 (1.01–32.31) (p-value = 0.049). Compared to the participants having the lowest quartile of CYA concentration in urine, participants at the second, third, and fourth quartile groups had ORs of 13.94, 83.69, and 118.65 with p-values of 0.004, <0.001, and <0.001, respectively. The high excretion of urinary CYA in urolithiasis cases might be the sign of stones in patients consisting of CYA, then proving the attribution of CYA exposure in the etiology of urolithiasis. These findings are important since CYA is a degraded by-product of chlorinated isocyanuric acid disinfectants, which are widely used in daily life not only in swimming pool water but also in other scenarios, such as serving as anti-pandemic disinfectants. Risk assessment of CYA serving as a by-product of disinfectants needs to be conducted in future studies.

Review: Challenges and prospects for milk production in China after the 2008 milk scandal

The primary objectives of this review were to characterize the challenges faced by China’s milk industry after the milk scandal of 2008 and to propose prospects for the future. This review is supported by data and information from the literature, various statistical yearbooks and databases, administration documents, news reports, and the authors’ own investigations. After the milk scandal and the resulting decline in the number of dairy cows in China, more recently annual milk production has come to the end of a rapid growth period. Importing large quantities of dairy products, especially milk powder, has affected domestic milk production. The high cost of milk production in China is the key reason for the lack of market competitiveness for milk within the country. Dairy farms are facing stricter environmental protection requirements, which have become an important economic constraint for future dairy farming development. In the transition from small-scale to large-scale (100 or more cows per farm) dairy farms in China, more 10,000-cow farms have emerged, which has triggered a debate about the size of dairy farms. Although China’s milk production is facing some challenges, the continuous improvement of consumers’ income, the formation of milk drinking habits, and governmental support have developed a large market potential for domestically produced dairy products and milk production. Improving market competitiveness while ensuring economic and environmental sustainability are key to the future prospects for China’s milk industry. The characterization and discussion of the past, current, and potential dairy industry in China is intended to enhance understanding for dairy farmers, dairy enterprises, and the government to positively and significantly adjust the strategies for the dairy industry. Future research needs to address the effects of different organizational forms of dairy enterprises and dairy farmers on milk production in China.

Interrelationship of environmental melamine exposure, biomarkers of oxidative stress and early kidney injury

Melamine contamination has remained pervasive in the environment even after the 2008 toxic milk scandal. Exposure to chronic low dosages of melamine is known to induce renal tubular damage, increasing the risk of stone formation and early kidney injury. This damage may come about via increased oxidative stress, but no studies of this possibility have been performed in humans. We conducted two human studies in 80 workers from melamine tableware factories (melamine workers) and 309 adult patients with calcium urolithiasis (stone patients) to evaluate the relationships between urinary melamine levels and two urinary biomarkers of oxidative stress, 8-oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and malondialdehyde (MDA). Both human studies showed urinary melamine levels to be significantly and positively correlated with urinary 8-OHdG and MDA, indicating melamine exposure can increase oxidative stress. Additionally, we used structure equation modeling to evaluate relative contribution of type of melamine-induced oxidative stress on renal tubular injury and found that MDA mediated 36 %–53 % of the total effect of melamine on a biomarker of renal tubular injury, N-Acetyl-β-d Glucosaminidase (NAG). In conclusion, our findings suggest exposure to low-dose melamine can increase oxidative stress and increase the risk of early damage to kidneys in humans.

A BDI Modeling Approach for Decision Support in Supply Chain Quality Inspection

Quality inspection, a widely adopted practice in supply chains, measures whether delivered products conform to prespecified quality requirements. Due to potential economic benefits, suppliers may deliberately manipulate products to falsify test results. However, unqualified products could cause severe problems in supply chains or even tragedies, such as China’s tainted milk scandal. In this paper, we propose a belief-desire-intention modeling approach to predict suppliers’ behavior and provide inspection suggestions to buyers to overcome the problem. Assuming access to the production process, our approach can represent suppliers’ knowledge of production and deception to mimic their reasoning processes and predict their deception intentions. This flexible approach can also adapt to environmental changes and deliver effective results. In this paper, we build a prototype system for supply chain quality inspections based on the proposed method. We conduct laboratory experiments to collect data for computational assessments of the performance of the prototype. It is shown that our proposed approach is more accurate than classic machine learning methods in detecting suppliers’ deceptions.

Stress-testing big data platform to extract smart and interoperable food safety analytics

One of the significant challenges for the future is to guarantee safe food for all inhabitants of the planet. During the last 15 years, very important fraud issues like the '2013 horse meat scandal' and the '2008 Chinese milk scandal' have greatly affected the food industry and public health. One of the alternatives for this issue consists of increasing production, but to accomplish this, it is necessary that innovative options be applied to enhance the safety of the food supply chain. For this reason, it is quite important to have the right infrastructure in order to manage data of the food safety sector and provide useful analytics to Food Safety Experts. In this paper, we describe Agroknow's Big Data Platform architecture and examine its scalability for data management and experimentation.

The Alternative Public Sphere in China: a Cultural Sociology of the 2008 Tainted Baby Milk Scandal

This article studies critical news reports about the 2008 Chinese tainted baby milk scandal, which the World Health Organization identified as one of the largest food safety crises in recent years. Examining the discursive practices adopted to legitimize journalistic criticism in authoritarian China, it reveals that critical-minded journalists avoid criticizing the state during the period of heavy censorship, preferring instead to target local governments. Journalists develop more explicit criticisms of the state as censorship becomes loosened, but they continue to rely on the strategic use of official statement and a heavy dose of praise to appear complimentary. Findings indicate that while critical journalism is constrained by political censorship, the Chinese critical press has managed to circulate counter-hegemonic interpretations of the scandal through strategic discursive practices.

Coping with the milk scandal

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine crisis communication strategies used by four leading Chinese milk companies at various crisis stages to cope with the largest food safety crisis in China. Approaching the interplay between the situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2007) and the image restoration theory (Benoit, 1995), the study attempted to understand the importance of crisis management at various crisis stages by comparing crisis communication strategies used by surviving and thriving companies with those by the company that failed.Design/methodology/approachDividing a crisis management process into three stages, a content analysis was conducted to analyze five major crisis communication strategies – evasion of responsibility, rebuilding, bolstering, endorsement of outside experts and government relations – used by Chinese milk companies at various crisis stages.FindingsThe study demonstrated that Sanlu, which went bankrupt as a result of the scandal, predominately took the Chinese crisis management approach. The other three companies that survived the scandal employed western crisis communication strategies, although with distinct Chinese characteristics. Specifically, all four companies employed similar strategies during the pre-crisis stage – keeping silent/covering-up. During the crisis stage, strategies varied dramatically as companies became involved – looking for government protection and apologizing, while survivors tended to adopt a widely used western strategy – bolstering at the post-crisis stage.Practical implicationsThe examination of crisis communication strategies at various crisis stages may shed some light on how effectively Chinese companies and possibly international companies in China can manage future crises that share similar profiles as this milk scandal and further call for attention to scrutinize the social responsibility of corporate citizens in China.Originality/valueThis study would fill the vacancy in research by investigating crisis communication strategies used in the largest food safety crisis in China. The findings provide insight for understanding the current status of crisis communication strategies and management within a Chinese matrix of political, social and cultural factors.

China’s universal healthcare reform: the first phase [2009–2011] of the ambitious plan

China is the country with the largest population and the second largest economic market in the world. Since the “reform and open policy” in 1978, China with its people has achieved unprecedented, fast-growing development. However, continuous healthcare crises, such as increasing incidence of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS, the epidemic outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, the milk scandal, etc., relatively reflect the aspects of China’s vulnerable health system (1).

Product quality asymmetry and food safety: Investigating the “one farm household, two production systems” of fruit and vegetable farmers in China

The Chinese government faces a great challenge to safeguard the safety of the food supply chain due to the significant fragmentation of producers and weak institutional resources to monitor and enforce safety standards. Food safety in China has received escalating attention since the 2008 milk scandal. Mainly due to safety concerns, Chinese farmers adopt two separate production systems for the market and self-consumption, and thus, the so-called “One Farm Household, Two Production Systems” (OFH-TPS) has gained popularity in the recent years.This study provides a theoretical framework to examine how product inspections and certifications affect the OFH-TPS adoption by mitigating information asymmetry of product quality. It also shows that both food safety concerns and cost savings are important factors for famers' decision on the adoption. The empirical analysis finds that product inspections conducted by firms, agricultural cooperatives, and farmers curb the OFH-TPS adoption, whereas government inspections have no statistically significant effect. Farmers who grow “Green Food” are less likely but organic farmers are more likely to adopt the OFH-TPS. We also find that pesticide use training curbs the OFH-TPS adoption, and the perceived adverse effects of pesticide use to the environment and human health have no statistical effect. Farmers who use highly toxic or banned pesticides and/or who perceive food safety at the local markets is poor are more likely to adopt the OFH-TPS. This study provides rich policy implications. To safeguard food safety, it is critical to engage the private sector for co-regulation, improve the efficacy of government inspections, and promote education on pesticide use to both farmers as well as retailers of pesticides.

Melamine Alters Glutamatergic Synaptic Transmission of CA3-CA1 Synapses Presynaptically Through Autophagy Activation in the Rat Hippocampus.

Melamine is an industrial chemical that can cause central nervous system disorders including excitotoxicity and cognitive impairment. Its illegal use in powdered baby formula was the focus of a milk scandal in China in 2008. One of our previous studies showed that melamine impaired glutamatergic transmission in rat hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells. However, the underlying mechanism of action of melamine is unclear, and it is unknown if the CA3-CA1 pathway is directly involved. In the present study, a whole-cell patch-clamp technique was employed to investigate the effect of melamine on the hippocampal CA3-CA1 pathway in vitro. Both the evoked excitatory postsynaptic current (eEPSC) and the paired-pulse ratio (PPR) were recorded. Furthermore, we examined whether autophagy was involved in glutamatergic transmission alterations induced by melamine. Our data showed that melamine significantly increased the amplitude of eEPSCs in a dose-dependent manner. Inhibition of the N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor did not prevent the increase in eEPSC amplitude. In addition, the PPR was remarkably decreased by a melamine concentration of 5×10(-5)g/mL. It was found that autophagy could be activated by melamine and an autophagy inhibitor, 3-MA, prevented the melamine-induced increase in eEPSC amplitude. Overall, our results show that melamine presynaptically alters glutamatergic synaptic transmission of hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses in vitro and this is likely associated with autophagy alteration.

Contesting Legality in Authoritarian Contexts: Food Safety, Rule of Law and China's Networked Public Sphere

Since the introduction of the Internet, China's networked public sphere has become a critical site in which various actors compete to shape public opinion and promote or forestall legal and political change. This paper examines how members of an online public, the Tianya Forum, conceptualized and discussed law in relation to a specific event, the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal. Whereas previous studies suggest the Chinese state effectively controls citizens' legal consciousness via propaganda, this analysis shows that the construction of legality by the Tianya public was not a top-down process, but a complex negotiation involving multiple parties. The Chinese state had to compete with lawyers and outspoken media to frame and interpret the scandal for the Tianya public and it was not always successful in doing so. Data show further how the online public framed the food safety incident as indicative of fundamental problems rooted in China's political regime and critiqued the state's instrumental use of law.

Corporate crime and state legitimacy: the 2008 Chinese melamine milk scandal

Corporate crime is a worldwide problem [41], but the burgeoning reported economic crime rate in China [33] involving such acts as poisoned food [109] and rampant environmental pollution [95], provide a unique opportunity to study the nature of such offending in a country whose economy is growing faster than any other in history. China retained authoritarian one-party control as the nation transitioned from the collectivist economy established by Mao Zedong to the current Bsocialist market economy,^ a capitalist market system combined with state-owned-enterprises. This combination of control and capital may help explain the documented rise in whitecollar and corporate offending in China, and provides a unique backdrop for examining the relevance of theories developed through the study of western capitalist societies. Few scholarly works exist that examine similarities and differences between corporate crime in China with offenses in the west [19, 46]. One paramount issue is whether such illegalities are subject to Bnon-issue making^ [29, 47] where the state provides de facto approval for injurious behaviors through non-response. Not all corporate offenses in the west are treated in this manner as some have argued that selectivity in regulatory enforcement results in the investigation of crimes that threaten capital accumulation [17]. This is likely due to the state’s desire to maintain a balance between its essential functions: capital accumulation and government legitimacy [69, 73]. While there appears to be evidence for such theories in western capitalist democracies, their applicability to single-party states such as China has yet to be examined by scholars. The aim of this study is to compare Chinese state response to corporate crime with that of capitalist democracies given the People’s Republic of China’s authoritarian, oneparty rule. It seeks to answer four questions regarding China’s response to economic crime. First, to what extent do local and national enforcement agencies in China allow Crime Law Soc Change (2015) 63:247–267 DOI 10.1007/s10611-015-9567-5

UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER INFERENCES IN THE PRODUCT HARM SITUATION

ABSTRACT A scandal involving adulterated milk in China in 2008 caused significant morbidity and mortality. Thousands of infants were reported to have become ill, and six died. The scandal involved one of the major Chinese manufacturers of milk-based products, which allegedly adulterated its products by adding melamine. This paper is about the Chinese customer’s perception of the milk companies during the milk scandal in 2008. The present study concentrated equally on both a discussion of the negative consequences, the external influences, and consumers’ predictable outrage in the product harm crisis. Keywords Product Harm Crisis, Chinese Consumer Mind, Qualitative study

Competing and hybridized discourses in Chinese news reporting: case studies of three key newspapers in Southern China

Comparative discourse studies have tended to emphasize uncovering the dichotomous systems or the differential ideological patterning between the East and the West. The present study attempts a turn in moving beyond the dichotomous perspective to examine the complexities and the internal variations within the Chinese culture and discourse. It explores the diverse discourse systems operating in the media practice of contemporary China and emphasizes that a discourse system is dynamic and constantly undergoing changes, competing with other discourse system(s) and incorporating elements from the other discourse system(s). The notion of stance by Du Bois is utilized to study the different possible stances the three key newspapers in Southern China (i.e. Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, Guangzhou Daily, and Southern Metropolis Daily) have adopted in reporting the case of the Sanlu milk scandal, manifesting the competing forces and the changing Chinese media in a globalizing context, with differential extent of hybridization between at least two discourses: the politically driven and the professionally driven discourses.

Hydrogen-bonding recognition-induced aggregation of gold nanoparticles for the determination of the migration of melamine monomers using dynamic light scattering

The migration of melamine monomers from food contact materials has aroused particular attention since the 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal in China. However, the determination of melamine monomer’s migratory quantity (MMMQ) has remained an open question because of the complex sample pretreatment and the low sensitivity. Based on the hydrogen bonding interaction between DNA thymine and melamine, this paper described a simple and rapid method focusing on the measurement of MMMQ from melamine tableware by gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). With the presence of probe DNA (p-DNA), the GNPs were stable in NaCl solution (0.06M), whereas they became aggregated when the p-DNA hybridized with melamine. The change in the hydrodynamic diameter of GNPs could be detected by DLS technology. Under the optimal conditions, the average diameter increased linearly with the concentration of melamine over the range from 5.0 to 320.0μgL−1, and showed a detection limit of 2.0μg L−1 (3σ/slope). The MMMQ was investigated within a range from 6.00×10−4 to 2.58×10−1mgdm−2 (n≥3) in four different food simulants at different temperatures and time points. The results suggest that the DLS method has great potential in the analysis of the migration of melamine monomers.

Marketing Raw Milk from Dairy Farmers before and after the 2008 Milk Scandal in China: Evidence from Greater Beijing

ABSTRACTChina's 2008 milk scandal severely impacted its dairy industry. Afterwards, the government took prompt efforts to regulate and enhance food safety standards. For example, a dairy marketing management policy was implemented, and concentrated dairy complexes were recommended as options for smallholder dairy farmers. The results of this study show that the policies affected marketing channels at the farm gate. Since then, new dairy complexes have emerged and are becoming the primary marketing channel for milk. The marketing transformation has profound implications for food safety, and has strengthened vertical coordination in the Chinese dairy chain.

A Double‐Hurdle Analysis of Demand for Powdered Milk: Evidence from Household Survey Data in an Urban Chinese Province

ABSTRACTThe objective of this study is to explore the determinants of urban at‐home consumption demand for powdered milk in Guangdong province from 2007 to 2009. A double‐hurdle model is used in this analysis based on survey data. The data include 8188 household distributed in 15 cities and prefectures of Guangdong province. Major findings show that the income growth of urban household, an increase in the level of education of the householder, and the different age groups within the household all have positive effects on urban at‐home consumption demand for powdered milk. The prices of powdered milk have negative effects on milk consumption. Families in the Pearl River Delta consume more powdered milk than families in the other regions. The powdered milk consumption has not been significantly affected by the 2008 Chinese melamine tainted milk scandal.

Revenue Sharing in Dairy Industry Supply Chain - A Case Study of Hohhot, China

Dairy industry has become an increasingly important enterprise in China as people's dietary preferences and composition have changed dramatically with rapid economic development in the past several decades. A number of problems, however, exist in China's relatively young dairy industry, including the imbalanced allocation of profits throughout the dairy supply chain. One of the root causes of the melamine infant powered milk scandal in 2008 was the unfair profit allocation mechanism in dairy supply chain. The revenue sharing contract approach has proven to be effective in generating market shares and total profits. In this study, we apply the three-stage revenue sharing contract model of Giannoccaro and Pontrandolfo (2004) in an analysis of dairy supply chain to explore its problems in profit allocation and possible solutions to them. The analysis was conducted by a case study of Hohhot, often called as “milk capital of China”. Our results show that the current profit distribution in the dairy supply chain is not balanced: the supermarket's profit>farmer's profit>manufacturer's profit. Under the revenue sharing contract setting, the dairy industry's total profit increased by 12.49%. By exploring different parameters in the revenue sharing contract model, we have found that a win-win situation can be created among all the members of the supply chain. In dairy supply chain, the ratio of the revenue reserved for the supermarket itself is equal or greater than 47% and the ratio of the revenue reserved for the manufacturer itself is between 46.4 and 50.2%. The values of the parameters that generate a sustainable or win-win situation are related to the bargaining position in the dairy supply chain. The revenue sharing contract has proven to be effective and desirable by all the dairy chain partners in dairy supply chain. The results of this study provide relevant information for improving the dairy supply chain structure and the revenue sharing contract model can be applied to other industries, sectors and regions.