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2 Executed in China for Selling Tainted Milk

GoCubsGo

GoCubsGo

macrumors Nehalem
Original poster
Feb 19, 2005
35,743
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Artile Link

I've read this, heard about it last year when it broke out (co-worker freaked out about it) and now this. Apparently in China if you sell bad milk then you die. Best I've been able to tell the two executed didn't actually taint the milk and weren't fully aware of this issue and yet their lives were taken because of the infant deaths and the 300,000 illnesses created.

I think about the worker who killed himself over a missing iPhone prototype and wonder what happens in these places that would lead to death if you screw up. If this is the case I should have been executed nearly 2 decades ago.

BEIJING — China executed two milk producers on Tuesday for selling more than three million pounds of contaminated milk products in connection with a food-safety scandal that killed six infants, shocking the country last year.

More than 300,000 children were also sickened after consuming milk products contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. The scandal caused panic among Chinese parents, weakened the nation’s dairy industry and provoked a global recall of Chinese-made dairy products.

The authorities described the two men who were executed, Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, as among the biggest culprits of the scandal. Mr. Zhang was found guilty of selling more than 1.3 million pounds of tainted milk powder from July 2007 to August 2008, and Mr. Geng was convicted of selling more than 1.9 million pounds of contaminated product.

Nineteen others were tried and sentenced in January for their roles in the scheme. Fifteen of them were imprisoned for terms of 2 to 15 years. One received a suspended death sentence, and three received life sentences.

The authorities found that the melamine was added to create the illusion of a higher protein content in the powder. Some critics said that some officials had covered up the problem until after the Olympics in August 2008 to spare the government embarrassment over its widespread regulatory failure.

Nearly two dozen Chinese companies sold the contaminated powder.

Sanlu Group, a major dairy company in Hebei Province in northeast China at the center of the scandal, was taken over by a state-controlled company. Dairy industry officials said last summer that the farmers and producers had largely recovered from the scandal, but some parents were still seeking redress, arguing that many of those punished so far were only scapegoats.
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rhett7660 said:
From the way the article reads, it almost sounds like they did it on purpose. I am not saying they did, but that is the tone I got from it. Very interesting.
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They did do it on purpose because it was cheaper and they bribed the regulators to let them do it.
 
We should have sent Bernie Madoff to China, amazing too how the system there doesnt cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get rid of these skanks. Guess they dont have to deal with useless lawyers and a system built around them.
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
We should have sent Bernie Madoff to China, amazing too how the system there doesnt cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get rid of these skanks. Guess they dont have to deal with useless lawyers and a system built around them.
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But their system is much more likely to convict innocent people.
 
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