Phelim Kine is an Asia-based researcher for Human Rights Watch. He writes in the Wall Street Journal:
As the world watched the fireworks of the Beijing Games‘ opening ceremony, the seeds of China’s latest deadly public health disaster were being sown. This latest chapter in the toxic product scandals — following toy train sets, dog food and dumplings — is a sobering reminder of the ongoing public-health threat posed by Beijing’s media censorship.
On Aug. 2, China’s dairy product giant Sanlu Group asked government officials in Hebei province to “increase control and coordination of the media” that tried to report on the poisoning of infants with Sanlu’s toxin-laced milk powder formula. Beijing had already decreed that along with Tibetan independence and public protests, “all food safety issues” were “off limits” for domestic news coverage during the Olympics.
Sanlu’s appeal worked. China’s state-controlled media didn’t break the story until Sept. 10 — after New Zealand demanded that China go public on illnesses related to the tainted formula. The contaminated milk, which causes kidney stones and can be fatal, has since been found in dairy products from some 20 companies.
Even as more babies got sick, China’s censors still allowed only carefully vetted articles on the issue by the official news agency Xinhua. Beijing warned Web monitors that any mention of the issue needed to be “monitored and controlled.” Meanwhile, the melamine-spiked milk made its way into China’s export chain, prompting dozens of countries to ban Chinese milk imports.
