Resident Fellow Roger Bate

Chinese officials are scrambling to save children's lives from its latest food scare--contaminated milk products. The Chinese cabinet released a statement Saturday saying all affected children should receive free check-ups and treatment. But can anything be done to limit future disasters?

Four children have died and nearly 13,000 are sick, 150 with serious kidney conditions, due to milk products contaminated with melamine. Melamine is used in industrial processes, mainly in the manufacturing of plastics. It is illegally added to heavily diluted milk products (powder and liquid) to boost the nitrogen content. Basic testing for milk measures nitrogen, which is a key component of all proteins, including in milk. So current tests assume the nitrogen is from milk protein, when it is from the cheap but dangerous melamine. Diluting milk and adding melamine creates vast profits for criminals. Unless more sophisticated tests are done by authorities or corporations trading in milk products, melamine contamination will continue to pass unnoticed--until it kills.

Melamine contamination has caused problems before. It killed 13 babies in China in 2004, and has sickened humans and killed animals around the world in exported toothpaste and pet food over the past few years.

The patterns in Chinese health scares are similar: An illegal cheaper and potentially lethal contaminant is added to an essential product and rather than admit the crime, there is corporate silence. Beijing initially denies the problem, or its extent, and follows up with condemnation and even executions of the guilty. But it does little to prevent cases occurring again. This latest example is no different.

Chinese corporations, notably the Sanlu Group, knew for weeks about the contamination and did nothing. When the problem finally emerged, it was thanks to a New Zealand company, Fonterra, which asked the New Zealand prime minister to contact the Chinese authorities.

Chinese health ministry official Gao Qiang vowed to "severely punish and discipline those people and workers who have acted illegally." So far, 18 people have been arrested (perhaps some will be executed). And while Gao initially reassured international experts that "none of the milk powder was exported to other countries or regions," it now appears that many countries in Asia and Africa may be affected.

Singapore and Malaysia were the first countries to ban all milk imports, including liquid milk, from China. Officials now admit that liquid milk from companies including Mengniu Dairy Group, Yili Industrial Group and Bright Dairy are also contaminated, and a case was reported Sunday in Hong Kong.

If the Chinese government is serious about combating future problems, the first thing it needs to do is improve testing. Accurate results can be achieved quickly with the use of handheld spectrometers, which can assess product veracity within 30 seconds. Given how many lives are at stake, Chinese authorities should be distributing such devices to their key regulators.

Ultimately, change needs to made from the top--and here there may be some good news. President Hu Jintao has accused some officials of ignoring public opinion, turning "a blind eye to people's hardships, and even major issues that concern the lives of the masses of people," the China Daily quoted him as saying. "Only when we strive to solve the pressing problems facing our officials and always put people first . . . can the party lead the people to achieve a moderately well-off society."

Inculcating good manufacturing processes in Chinese businesses will indeed take a long time. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is helping establish academic programs to improve standards, but it may be a decade or longer before potentially fatal cost-cutting actions become an historic embarrassment rather than a present threat.

Roger Bate is a resident fellow at AEI.