vIndianz.com (24 Nov, 2009) — China executed two men on Tuesday for their participation in the contamination of milk products that killed at least six Chinese infants and sickened about 300,000 other children.
The municipal court in Shijiazhuang, in an announcement cited by the state news agency Xinhua, said Zhang Yujun was executed for manufacturing and selling hundreds of tons of toxic protein powder, and Geng Jinping was put to death for selling over 900 tons of contaminated milk.
Dairy producers and middlemen laced milk, milk powders and infant formula with an industrial chemical, melamine, usually used in production of plastics, fertilizer and pesticides. The melamine was added to trick inspectors into thinking the milk was high in protein. But the chemical caused kidney stones, kidney failure and additional health problems. Children were the most gravely affected.
Mr. Geng sold his milk to the Sanlu Group, the dairy corporation at the center of the scandal and the largest of 22 companies that were finally implicated in the poisonings. News of the scandal broke in September of last year.
Sanlu, which was bankrupted by the matter, was based in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province in northern China. The former chairwoman of the Sanlu board, Tian Wenhua, was sentenced to life in prison.
Xinhua said 21 people have been tried and convicted this year in association with the milk scandal: Mr. Zhang and Mr. Geng were sentenced to death and one more man received a suspended death sentence. Mrs. Tian and two others got life sentences and 15 received jail terms of between 2 and 15 years.
The government said the 22 companies that sold the tainted products have decided to compensate most affected families, paying amounts ranging from $290 to $29,000, depending on how badly children were sickened.
Further Reading- New MRSA Strain Found In Dairy Cattle and Humans – Scientific American
- New MRSA Strain Found In Dairy Cattle and Humans – Scientific American
- New MRSA Strain Found In Dairy Cattle and Humans – Scientific American
- New MRSA Strain Found In Dairy Cattle and Humans – Scientific American
- Fatty acid in dairy foods may lower diabetes risk – Reuters
- New strain of MRSA found in dairy cow milk also present in humans – DailyIndia.com
- Three children injured in South Delhi factory fire – NDTV.com
- Man sentenced to death for killing Christians – CNN International
- Drunken driver sentenced to 51 years for killing baseball pitcher – CNN International
- China jails 8 for selling fake rabies vaccine – Washington Post
Stay updated! Follow us on twitter and subscribe to our feed via Feedburner.
No Comments