China's Tainted Milk and Baby Formula Sickens Nearly 13,000

The number of people affected by tainted milk and baby formula continues to grow. Nearly 13,000 people have been affected by the tainted milk.

More than 80 percent of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger, the Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site late Sunday. Four children have died.

The ministry said most of the children sickened consumed infant formula from one company, the Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co. The dairy is at the center of one of China's worst food safety scandals in years.

Over the weekend, the Chinese territory of Hong Kong reported the first known illness outside mainland China — a 3-year-old girl who developed kidney stones after drinking Chinese dairy products. She was discharged from the hospital, the Hong Kong government said.

In the two weeks since the government first acknowledged the contamination, it has issued recalls for dairy products from 22 companies after tests turned up traces of melamine. The Health Ministry said that most of the hospitalized were sickened by powdered milk and formula.

"The hospitalized children basically consumed Sanlu brand infant milk powder. No cases have been found from ingesting liquid milk," said the statement.

Melamine is used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen, which registers as protein in tests of milk. Though health experts believe ingesting minute amounts poses no danger, melamine can cause kidney stones, which can lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable.

Some of the farmers who sell milk to Chinese food companies are thought to have used melamine to disguise watered-down milk and fatten profit margins hurt by rising costs for feed, fuel and labor.

UPDATE 9/22/2008:
Make that 50,000 sickened infants and children.