Milk is one of this products that as consumers we tend to trust, there aren’t many people that would consider it as a dangerous or as an unsafe product. However just two years ago, 21 companies in the Chinese milk industry were involved in a milk scandal that led to the health complications of 300,000 people, left 860 babies hospitalized and directly caused the death of six children.
For those who are unfamiliar with the 2008 milk scandal, what happened was that milk companies adulterated melamine in order to reduce their manufacturing costs.
These 21 companies were only thinking about an easy way to cut in costs and hence increase profit and did not think or cared enough about the implications of their actions, now if that’s not an ethical issue than I don’t know what it is.
The implications of this scandal did not stop with the death and illness of children, it made millions of people across mainland China (including myself) and across the globe to stop trusting the milk industry and to stop seeing milk as a safe product.
More recent information about new milk scandals surfacing in China could be seen in the following link http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8478195.stm