Chinese dairy maker Yili said it had started recalling batches of
baby formula after authorities found they contained high levels of
mercury, in the latest food safety scare to hit the country.
The
company began the recall on Wednesday after a national food safety
monitoring system detected "abnormal" levels of mercury in the products,
state-owned Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group said in a statement.
The recall covers baby formula produced from November 2011 to May 2012,
according to the statement posted Thursday.
The firm did not state
how much baby formula was affected or how mercury -- which is extremely
toxic and can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system
at high exposure -- made its way into the products.
China's
quality watchdog said Thursday it had carried out an "urgent monitoring"
of 715 samples of baby formula by various producers following the Yili
case, but so far no other products were found to be unsafe.
However,
authorities were unable to collect samples from 20 firms because they
had suspended production of baby formula, the General Administration of
Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said in a
statement.
It was unclear when they stopped production and whether
this was linked to the mercury scare.
Currently, 119 companies in China
manufacture baby formula, state media cited Ma Chunliang, an official
with AQSIQ, as saying last month.
China's dairy industry is prone
to safety scares. In 2008, milk was at the centre of one of China's
biggest food safety scandals when the industrial chemical melamine was
found to have been illegally added to dairy products to give the
appearance of higher protein content.
Since then, many Chinese
people remain suspicious of domestically produced milk after six
children died and 300,000 others fell ill in the scandal, which also
involved Yili products.
Critics say the hygiene standards that China's
dairy farms must adhere to are among the world's lowest, with the levels
of bacteria permissible in milk four times as high as in most Western
countries.
There have been accusations that the government, keen
to ensure China's growing demand for milk is catered to, is giving in to
an increasingly powerful dairy industry dominated by Yili and another
dairy giant Mengniu.
Yili shares were down by the maximum 10% daily
limit at 21.85 yuan ($3.4) in Shanghai on midday Thursday, bucking the
rising trend in the broader market.
MSN
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