More than 3,000 primary school pupils in northeast China's Liaoning
Province continued to suffer the effects of poisoning yesterday due
to their drinking soya milk produced by a Sino-United States joint
venture.
The local media said three students have died but the provincial
government did not confirm that figure. Some doctors and parents
suspected that deliberate poisoning had been involved.
More than 200 parents have taken their children to Beijing for
better medical treatment.
The students affected come from eight primary schools in the city
of Haicheng. They experienced stomach aches, headaches, dizziness
and twitching. The edges of many children's eyes, noses and mouths
went black and blue.
The suspected soya milk, recommended by the local educational
authorities on March 19, was produced by the Anshan-based Baorun
Milk Co, a Sino-United States joint venture based in the city of
Anshan in Liaoning Province.
Sources with the Anshan government, which also covers Haicheng,
said the cause of the food poisoning was still being
investigated.
Parents reportedly heard the pupils had been infected with corpus
luteum mould but local authorities have not verified this.
One parent surnamed Gao said Beijing-based doctors had diagnosed
some of the children as having abnormal readings for white blood
cells and lymph.
Sources with the Beijing Children's Hospital, one of those in the
Chinese capital to have treated some of the victims, said the
incident was obviously a case of food poisoning but said it was
difficult to tell the origin.
One doctor, who refused to be named, said: "I am afraid someone has
intentionally put poison into the milk as the urinary albumin and
phosphorus indices are strangely higher than normal figures."
The parent surnamed Gao said the local health department has so far
refused to reveal the result of the examination it carried out.
Another parent, surnamed Yang, said they have to come to Beijing as
few hospitals in Liaoning have recognized the symptoms to cure the
children.
Yang said the milk has caused several children to go blind.
The Haicheng City Educational Commission, which had recommended
that the children drink the soya milk, said the incident was still
being investigated and no conclusion had been reached yet.
A
representative of the Anshan Baorun Milk Co surnamed Han said she
suspected that a competitor was to blame, as the soya milk from the
same batch delivered to other schools had not had any negative
effects.
"The health and epidemic-prevention authorities have proven that
our products are up to the national standard," she said.
Han said her company has not been planning to pay out any
compensation.
Sources with the Beijing-based Union Hospital said the Beijing
Municipal Public Security Bureau has become involved in the case
but declined to describe it as a criminal case.
(China Daily April 9, 2003)