The picture above is the milk powder from Sanlu Company in China. In 2008, the scandal of Sanlu Company shocked people all over the world for overusing melamine (a harmful chemical substance for increasing protein content) in their milk powder. Thousands of babies became victims by their unethical behavior, even some of babies died or got renal failure. The reason why Sanlu did such an immoral thing towards its consumers was because they wanted to meet China’s standard for protein content. Adding melamine to their milk products was the open secret among milk powder companies, and Sanlu was a representative example which reflects a conflict between business ethics and a country’s standard.
Personally, China’s regulation about protein content is obviously higher than other counties, but its motive is innocent. In market, however, almost no companies are willing to increase their costs to achieve the standard, therefore, Sanlu had to use melamine although it has no ethics. In this case, the Government of China is supposed to consider the cause for this whole tragedy. At the same time, milk powder companies should keep their basic business ethics for customers and their market in China. It is related to life, after all.