An executive meeting of the State Council (cabinet), presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, on Wednesday decided to launch national comprehensive tests of dairy products and reform the dairy industry.

According to the meeting, the incident involving the tainted Sanlu milk powder reflected chaotic industry conditions, as well as loopholes in the supervision and management of the industry.

It is necessary to learn lessons, properly deal with the incident, improve the inspection and supervision system and strengthen the management of the dairy industry, the meeting said.

The meeting also reached six other decisions and ordered governments at all levels to implement them. These decisions include:

-- providing the best and free medical care to those sickened by melamine-contaminated milk powder,

-- confiscating and destroying all sub-standard products,

-- strictly supervising the production of dairy companies with on-site inspectors,

-- revising regulations on the supervision and management of the industry,

-- subsidizing dairy farmers and encouraging more production by those enterprises with higher-quality products and,

-- finding the cause of the incident and punishing those responsible.

The Sanlu Group, a leading Chinese dairy producer based in the northern Hebei Province, admitted last week that it had found some of its baby milk powder products were contaminated with melamine, a chemical raw material. It issued an immediate recall of milk formula made before Aug. 6.

Three infants have died so far. There are at least 6,244 infant victims of the contaminated milk powder, of whom 158, or 2.5 percent, have acute kidney failure, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.

(Xinhua News Agency September 18, 2008)