China's Elite Eat Pure Food as Babies Die

[Michael]

China’s Elite Eat Pure Food as Babies Die
Sept. 28, 2008
Times Online

CHINA’S children may be dying from tainted milk but the country’s leaders are dining on pure organic ingredients. Like the emperors of old, the new communist elite enjoy the finest produce from all over China, sourced by a high-security government department.

The revelation has provoked anger among the public and embarrassment for the leadership as it battles a food scandal that has further damaged the country’s reputation.

Chinese milk products have been banned by the European Union and the state media have admitted that one child in 20 in Shanghai may now have kidney damage as a result of drinking contaminated formula milk.

No such peril lies in wait, however, for the members of China’s political elite.

Their diet includes beef from cattle that have grazed on the pesticide-free pastures of inner Mongolia and fish from the crystalline rivers and lakes of Hubei province in central China. They dine on rice that costs 15 times the price of the ordinary grain; as well it might, being grown on the slopes of a mountain near North Korea and irrigated by clear waters from melting snows.

They sip tea brewed with the most delicate leaves from lofty plantations on the fringe of the Tibetan plateau. It costs more than £100 a pound.

The task of selecting the best falls to a body known as the State Council Central Government Bureau Special Food Supply Centre. It caters for the dietary needs of the senior leaders such as President Hu Jintao who, foreign diplomats say, is a diabetic.

“To care for the health of elderly officials, we consider healthy food a special task,” said Zhu Yonglan, the centre’s director, in a recent speech.

“For security we insist food is approved by scientists for no contamination or chemical additives and there must be a quality audit right down the food chain to the provider.”

The text of Zhu’s speech was removed from a biotech company website hours after the People’s Daily published a denial that either the centre or Zhu existed. “That news is fabricated,” it said.

Bloggers then published its address at 12 Dongtu Road, in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, named the police-owned farms that it used, and said it supplied 94 individual officials.

The centre was set up in 2004 after a spate of tragic incidents revealing that China’s food chain is fraught with danger. Poisoned dumplings exported to Japan, fish laden with carci-nogens, counterfeit rice spirit that makes the drinker go blind – the average Chinese consumer has endured them all.

In this latest scandal, at least 13,000 children are in hospital and three babies have died after drinking formula milk containing melamine, a chemical that can cause kidney damage. It is added illegally to watered-down raw milk to increase its protein content.

Twenty-two Chinese dairies are implicated and milk sales have fallen sharply. Chinese milk and products containing it, such as cakes and biscuits, have been banned or recalled from many countries.

So far the authorities have taken more than 7,000 tons of suspect products off shelves, arrested 18 people and sacked seven government officials.

The Communist party propaganda machine has gone into full damage control mode. Xin-hua, the state news agency, last week praised western-style public relations and “brand crisis management” for restoring public confidence.

The Chinese public appeared to be more sceptical in its uncensored online response to the news. One blogger complained: “In China tigers are made of paper and milk powder is made of poison but high officials have their own food supplies and that’s why they don’t really care about safety.” China has sacked its police chief and deputy governor in Tibet six months after riots by Tibetans embarrassed the government and led to worldwide protest ahead of the Olympic Games.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

that's a no brainer.

the power elite of any country will all take the "let them eat cake stance" not just because they're "power elite" but because they are in the position to do so and don't know any better as they are soaked to the marrow in their own sense of entitlement. All people of power behave this way, corruption is a fundamentally power based attribute. It is a problematic aspect that will always exist so long as there is hierarchy.

[bluesky]

I believe milk scandal incident has shown that there is an more open media that is holding its government accountable in China.

[Steve James]

Aw, you can't change that. It'd be socialist.

[Michael]

Is that why the baby milk story broke in New Zealand even after the melamine pet food scandal last year?

[Steve James]

Hey, I shouldn't be facetious. This is an old problem, especially in the so-called 3rd world. I mean, through contaminated baby formula. The reasons for this are always the same: greed and profit. Since the people who made the formula didn't have to feed it to their own children. To fix the problem; to ensure that it doesn't happen at all; it means that the producers have to treat their product as if their own children had to eat it. (In the old days, they'd make a mason stand under the arch when the keystone was set and the forms were removed. If it fell, he'd be the first to know. The same with the king's cooks.

[meeks]

In the old days, they'd make a mason stand under the arch when the keystone was set and the forms were removed. If it fell, he'd be the first to know

day-um...that's strict...

[Muad'dib]

I don't understand why the king's cooks had to stand under the keystone...

[CaliG]

Sad stuff, but that's the direction China's going in.

A few very powerful rich people and the rest of them making products for Walmart at a dollar an hour.

Then again that's the world.

[DeusTrismegistus]

This just reaffirms that real nipples are the best nipples.

[Steve James]

This just reaffirms that real nipples are the best nipples.

Hey, did you know that men can also lactate --and even breast-feed?

[Steve James]

I don't understand why the king's cooks had to stand under the keystone...

I mean that they were required to eat the food they cooked for the king before the king put his lips on it.

[DeusTrismegistus]

This just reaffirms that real nipples are the best nipples.

Hey, did you know that men can also lactate --and even breast-feed?

I knew there have been cases of men lactatiting but I never knew about breast feeding, unless they were the consumer of course.

[Steve James]

This just reaffirms that real nipples are the best nipples.

Hey, did you know that men can also lactate --and even breast-feed?

I knew there have been cases of men lactatiting but I never knew about breast feeding, unless they were the consumer of course.

Yeah, they lactated, but I'm not sure that it would be sufficient for feeding a baby. But, that's just a question of quantity, and that goes along with the size of the glands. To get the male mammaries to the required size ... would probably require hormone injections, and most men would probably be reluctant --for cultural reasons, of course. Otoh, there's really no need for a male to build breasts to feed babies. There's a really, really good source on hand ... er, on ... tap? .... No, well, you know what I mean.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Steve, can I get more info on that men lactating thing? Do you have some online sources? I want to send my gf the info, because I told her about a Reuters story a few years ago about a widowed man who started breastfeeding his baby.