China on Saturday sought to calm public anxiety about a nationwide milk safety scandal as officials ordered the removal of all tainted supplies from stores, promised more scrutiny of dairy producers and issued warnings against price gouging. Meanwhile, President Hu Jintao scolded local officials as failing to safeguard the public interest. The broad response underscores how deeply the dairy crisis has resonated with the Chinese public as well as the political problem the scandal has presented for the government, which only last year promised to revamp the country’s food and drug regulatory system after a string of controversies.
The scandal was initially limited to contaminated baby formula, which has killed four infants and sickened more than 6,200 others. Inspectors have discovered that 22 dairy companies produced batches of formula tainted with melamine, an industrial additive used to make fertilizers and plastics. In recent days, traces of melamine have also been discovered in some batches of liquid milk and in a frozen yogurt bar in Hong Kong.
The dairy sections of many grocery stores in major cities are now mostly empty from recalls. Consumers are rushing to buy foreign brands of boxed milk. Also, Starbucks franchises in China have switched to soy milk.
The Chinese news media have publicized brands of milk that have been tainted, a list that includes the country’s biggest dairy companies. Nearly 10 percent of the milk tested from two leading brands — Mengniu and Yili — revealed traces of melamine.
For days, parents have crowded into hospitals around the country to have their infants tested for the kidney problems that have occurred in babies who drank the contaminated milk over a sustained period.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Health ordered that all 31 provinces and major cities establish telephone hot lines to provide information and help.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, has promised to punish lawbreakers and to require companies that produced tainted milk products to pay for victims’ medical costs.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hu urged members of the Chinese Communist Party to “make self-improvement” during a speech at a party meeting in Beijing, according to Xinhua, the country’s official news agency. Mr. Hu said various work and food safety “accidents” this year “had indicated that some leaders lacked a sense of responsibility and had a loose governance.”
Mr. Hu did not mention the milk scandal, but the timing of his comments hardly seemed coincidental. Officials have blamed the dairy industry for the crisis, but many people on the Internet have also criticized the failure of the government’s regulatory system. Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong have all recalled any dairy products made in China.
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