On Monday, Chinese health officials raised the total number of infants sickened by Sanlu brand milk powder to more than 1,200. (09/15/08 USA TODAY, “Tainted Milk Sickens More than 1,200 Babies in China.”)

The formula was spiked with the industrial chemical, melamine, a contaminate that causes kidney stones (which are otherwise rare in infants). (Id. See also 9/12/08 FDA PRESS RELEASE, “FDA Issues Health Information Advisory on Infant Formula.”) Like the Heparin scandal, the contamination was intentional and a result of corporate greed. Specifically, Chinese investigators say melamine was added to make the milk seem higher in protein and thus, fool quality tests after water was added to fraudulently increase the milk's volume. (Id.)

Unlike the Heparin tragedy, however, it appears that Americans might have missed this latest batch of contaminated products manufactured in China. The FDA has indicated “that there is no known threat of contamination” as “no Chinese manufacturers of infant formula have fulfilled the requirements to sell infant formula in the United States.” (9/12/08 FDA PRESS RELEASE, “FDA Issues Health Information Advisory on Infant Formula.”) Yet, the FDA has not completed its current investigation as to whether or not infant formula manufactured in China is being sold in specialty markets which serve the Asian community. (Id.)

Regardless, this latest contamination is another example of why drugs and other products manufactured in poorly regulated foreign countries cannot be blindly accepted as pure. It should continue to serve as a warning to large U.S. companies who buy these cheaper products and pass them on to the unsuspecting American public…A warning, which unfortunately, was ignored by the big drug company, Baxter, in the heparin disaster that killed numerous Americans.

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