Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, April 19, 2003
Liaoning Publishes Investigation Result of Milk Poisoning Case
The government of Anshan city and health department of Liaoning Province published on April 16 the investigation result at the second news briefing of the milk poisoning case in Haicheng city.
The government of Anshan city and health department of Liaoning Province published on April 16 the investigation result at the second news briefing of the milk poisoning case in Haicheng city.
On March 19, about 4,900 students from eight elementary schools in Haicheng drank a certain kind of soy milk and 2,556 of them became sick afterward. From April 9 to 15, the Ministry of Health and Liaoning health department jointly formed an investigation team, consisting of experts on food security, epidemic diseases, food processing, microbiology and clinical medicine, and conducted investigation into the case caused by soy milk produced by Baorun Milk Co, a Sino-United States joint venture based in the city of Anshan in Liaoning Province.
The experts determined that some kind of trypsin inhibitor in the soy milk was the cause of the accident, and people allergic to the agent would suffer digestive tract problems after consuming the soy milk. They also ruled out the possibility of bacterial, chemical and animal poisons. Experts also held that people usually recover well from the sickness and there will be no long-term, potential harm to the body.
Anshan mayor Zhang Jiehui briefed the investigation work of both Anshan and Haicheng authorities, making two promises to the society. First, Anshan government will be responsible for the health and life security of the 2556 pupils to the end, and make all efforts to ensure that all students recover from the illness. Second, the government will handle the case and people involved according to law and the principles of "being just, transparent and no cover-up for anybody". Anshan government also made known that the death of Li Yang, a 12-year-old girl who died half a month after drinking the soy milk at school, was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, and not the milk. Up to the evening of April 15, 84 pupils had been under treatment in three local hospitals.