A few years back, China’s biggest milk powder producing company ‘Sanlu group’ admitted to adding toxic chemical, Melamine, into it’s milk powder. Melamine has a few industrial uses such as including the production of laminates, glues, dinnerware, adhesives, molding compounds, coatings and flame retardants. The “extra ingredient” in the milk powder resulted in more than 56000 infants or young children falling ill and even the death of 4 babies. The melamine in the milk powder induced kidney failure in infants.
Image taken from: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00998/sanlu-460_998320c.jpg
The company’s unethical behavior of adding melamine into their milk powder as a result of cutting production cost, lead to the death of 4 infants. I think the worst part of this whole crisis is the fact that the government officials did not do thorough checks with the milk powder before approving it to be sold of shelves. This was the result of negligence or possibly bribery of the government officials. Government officials ought to clamp down on unethical businessmen and thoroughly check through their products before allowing them to be sold in the market.
Credit:
http://www.who.int/topics/melamine/en/ — 11 September 2013
http://hbr.org/product/a/an/HKU837-PDF-ENG?cm_sp=doi-_-case-_-HKU837-PDF-ENG&referral=00103 — 11 September 2013
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00998/sanlu-460_998320c.jpg — 11 September 2013
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