Even Myanmar shunning tainted Chinese milk

Thanks to tainted milk, China's product-safety reputation is plumbing new depths. Even Myanmar -- where one of the world's most repressive and isolated military governments relies on trade with China -- has now warned its people to steer clear of all Chinese dairy products.

The generals who run Myanmar are sealed off from much of the world by economic sanctions, following a bloody military assault last year on Buddhist monks and pro-democracy protesters. They increasingly depend on China for everything from military hardware to consumer goods.

Still, Myanmar's government has publicized its destruction of 16 tons of Chinese baby food tainted with melamine, the industrial chemical that was mixed with milk products, leading in China to the deaths of four infants, the sickening more than 54,000 babies and a Chinese government crackdown on 22 dairy companies.

"Authorities concerned have urged the people not to consume milk and dairy products," the state-run New Light of Myanmar reported Sunday in Yangon, the capital.

The anomaly of consumer protection in Myanmar points to the scale and severity of China's global public-relations disaster in the wake of what appears to have been a long-standing, industrial-scale scheme to adulterate infant formula and other milk products.

China's Cabinet vowed a complete overhaul of the scandal-ridden dairy industry Monday, pledging to inspect every link from the farm to the dinner table to try to restore public trust in Chinese-made food products.

In its strongest action yet, China's highest level of government called the industry "chaotic" and acknowledged there was a lack of oversight.

At Monday's meeting of China's State Council, or Cabinet, the government said it would punish companies and officials involved in the contamination of milk products that has been blamed in the deaths of four babies and for sickening more than 54,000 children.

The scandal revealed "that China's dairy production and circulation has been chaotic and supervision has been gravely absent," said a notice about the meeting on the government's Web site. Unscrupulous "elements" and companies had also put profit above people's lives, it said.

Dairy operators add melamine to milk products to increase its protein levels -- and their profits. The chemical often causes kidney stones when consumed by babies in infant formula.

A global backlash to the milk scandal continues to burp up melamine-tainted foods, from "Chocolate Pillows" sweets in Osaka, Japan, to a milkshake in Austria to White Rabbit Creamy Candies in West Hartford, Conn.

The scandal has touched some of the world's largest food companies, with Nestle, Cadbury, Mars and Kraft Foods recalling products or suspending sales. Imports of Chinese dairy products have been halted from Brunei to Burundi, Cambodia to Russia.

"China is overwhelming other countries with its ability to produce things at a cheaper price," said Yoko Tomiyama, head of the Consumers Union of Japan, where paranoia about Chinese food products is now ubiquitous. "As long as this globalized consumer system prevails, there will always be the next melamine."

Over the weekend, China announced the arrest of six more people suspected of producing and selling melamine. They were detained in northern China, where the country's milk industry in based.