So???? the government knew............................

[Guest guest]

the following is from this link ... more there to read

 

 

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/499840

 

Clark convened her senior ministers within 72 hours, then ordered them to leapfrog the Chinese provincial authorities – and deal directly with the more powerful central government in Beijing.

A recall was announced in China the next day, Sept. 11.

"We were the whistle-blowers and they leapt in and ensured that there was action on the ground," Clark told TV New Zealand. "At a (Chinese) local level ... I think the first inclination was to try to put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall."

She commended China's central government for moving swiftly.

But troubling – and potentially explosive – is the timing of Fonterra's blocked efforts.

Fonterra said it had learned of the contamination problem in early August – less than one week before Beijing's prestigious Olympic Games – and immediately pushed Sanlu to announce a recall.

"We as a minority shareholder had to continue to push Sanlu," Fonterra chief Andrew Ferrier explained to reporters in New Zealand on a video-conference call from Singapore. "Sanlu had to work with its own government to follow the procedures that they were given.

"We, together with Sanlu, have done everything that we possibly could to get the product off the shelf," Ferrier said.

But they were blocked.

Whether provincial regulators feared the central government would not brook a high-profile food scare on the brink of the Olympic Games is a legitimate question.

Last year China was rocked by successive health scares involving toothpaste, tires, toys – even medicines – and the Chinese government took extraordinary steps to improve oversight and inspection to assure the world's athletes that coming to Beijing would not involve a food-safety hazard.

But a health scare involving infant formula just days before the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies would have had a chilling effect on spectators and athletes – and would not have been welcomed by China's central government.

A news report in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post during the Games said senior editors at mainland Chinese news media had been handed "a 21-point directive" on how to report the Olympics from the central government's Propaganda Department – to which all Chinese media are accountable. On that list, the report said, No. 8 cautioned against reporting "all food safety issues."

Beijing Olympic Committee officials denied the existence of such a document.

Last night – a week after it publicly denied any wrongdoing – Sanlu apologized to the Chinese public.