Preface
In 2008, the news of "Sanlu Poisoned Milk Powder Killed 300,000 Infants and Young Children" came out, and it caused a sensation across the country overnight!
China's dairy giant Sanlu Group went bankrupt, and Tian Wenhua, the chairman of Sanlu Group, was also imprisoned.
Now that many years have passed, Tian Wenhua, who was originally sentenced to life, has been commuted three times in a row, and is expected to be released in 2027.
And the pain of melamine to those 300,000 children and families continues......
So why can Tian Wenhua commute his sentence again and again?
Who is responsible for them now?
What is protein?
Sanlu Milk Powder started as a dairy farm, producing and selling itself.
But then the factory expanded, and they began to increase the number of cows in order to increase the production of milk ingredients.
These cows are generally distributed to local farmers, who only need to take the cows to the milk collection station on a regular basis.
At first, the competition for milk powder was not very large, so the price at which Sanlu purchased this milk was also relatively high, and dairy farmers could make a lot of money.
However, with the rise of imported milk powder and other domestic milk powder, Sanlu milk powder has begun to reduce costs in order to improve brand competitiveness, and the price of purchasing fresh milk is getting lower and lower.
These farmers are reluctant to reduce their incomes, so they start working on the amount of milk.
At first, they poured water into it, hoping to increase the total amount of milk directly.
However, pouring water will directly affect the protein content of the milk, and the milk that does not meet the test standards will be returned directly to the farmers.
They had to find another way.
Later, some people added protein powder to it, but when they added it, they found that the price of protein powder was too high, and even directly exceeded the cost of directly handing over pure milk.
These farmers have had to give up adding protein powder and continue to look for cheaper ways.
By chance, they came into contact with a pet food manufacturer and discovered that the melamine they had added to it could actually make the nitrogen level up to standard.
The primary bane of tainted milk powder is profit, and the real poison is the maliciously added melamine in it.
This substance, often called albumin, is an industrial organic compound, which belongs to industrial materials and cannot be eaten.
It is called protein because the nitrogen content of the substance exceeds 60%.
When testing the protein content of food, the institution adopts the Kai-style nitrogen determination method, as long as the nitrogen content is determined, the protein content can be poured out.
So they bought melamine and came back to try it, and when they brought the melamine-fortified milk to the milk station, it actually passed the test.
Since then, almost all Sanlu farmers have known to add melamine to their milk.
In fact, melamine itself is insoluble in water, and it will become turbid in milk because it cannot be dissolved, but the milk itself is white, so it masks the existence of melamine very well.
It stands to reason that the milk is added with industrial raw materials, and the quality inspection department should be able to detect it easily, but Sanlu milk powder seems to have never been affected.
This is because by virtue of its start-up to maturity, Sanlu milk powder has made a name for itself in the domestic market, and even obtained the qualification for exemption from inspection, which has led them to become more and more presumptuous in product quality.
Because melamine is insoluble in water and cannot be absorbed by the human body, infants and young children will have symptoms of kidney stones and kidney failure when they drink this milk powder.
It is understood that as early as 2004, Sanlu milk powder broke out to have quality problems, but why was it not processed until 2008?
All evils of capitalists
As melamine-fortified milk powder is sold to the market, the number of infants and young children who drink tainted milk powder has skyrocketed.
Especially the poor people, because they can't afford to buy imported milk powder, most of them choose this kind of Sanlu milk powder, which is very cost-effective.
And they advertise that they are very healthy and the best choice for their children.
But soon, in 2004, several children developed kidney stones because of eating Sanlu milk powder, and these children also have a common feature, that is, their heads are very large.
These children are smaller than their peers and are always very weak in life, gasping for breath after a few steps.
The child's parents found out that it was a problem with milk powder, so they asked Sanlu milk powder for an explanation, and also exposed the bad behavior of Sanlu milk powder on the Internet.
That year, the state did announce a list of unqualified milk powder enterprises, among which was Sanlu Group.
However, it didn't take long for Sanlu milk powder to be removed from the list and once again became everyone's reassuring milk powder.
Seeing that Sanlu milk powder was still at large, the victim's family continued to expose them on the Internet, and the relevant discussions in the Tianya forum were still very hot.
However, it didn't take long for this post to be deleted directly, and I don't have to think about it to know that Sanlu paid to seal the landlord's mouth.
In order to further reduce the pressure of public opinion, Sanlu also wants to cooperate with Baidu, hoping to get the right to delete the news as soon as possible.
But Baidu was afraid of getting into trouble and refused to cooperate.
Despite the outbreak in 2004, Sanlu has not repented and continues to add melamine to milk powder, continuing to poison infants and young children.
It was not until 2008 that the First Hospital of the People's Liberation Army in Lanzhou accepted infants and young children with kidney stones one after another, and finally opened a case for investigation of Sanlu.
Within three months, nearly 60 infants and young children with kidney stones were found in Gansu, with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.
Medicine believes that kidney stones mostly exist in young adults aged 20-50, and children eat milk powder, how can they get this disease.
After investigation, it was found that they had all eaten Sanlu milk powder, and it was obvious that Sanlu milk powder was the culprit of these children's illnesses.
After reporting to the local government, Sanlu was not punished.
It wasn't until the central government was alarmed that Sanlu's ugly behavior surfaced.
Its chairman Tian Wenhua was directly detained and imprisoned, and all Sanlu milk powder that flowed to the market was also urgently recalled.
To this end, the government is also calling on the whole society to do a relevant examination for the children at home.
I don't know if I don't check this, and I'm shocked when I check it.
Nationwide, nearly 300,000 children have kidney problems, and several children have even died of kidney failure.
In addition, in order to further investigate the practice of poisoned milk powder, investigators also tested various domestic and imported milk powder on the market.
This investigation also found that several milk powder brands had melamine added to varying degrees.
And the milk powder they manufacture and export abroad is actually a standard product.
It's hard not to think that what they're doing is specifically aimed at China, and maybe even that other countries are arranging spies in China.
Sanlu milk powder went bankrupt and liquidated, Tian Wenhua was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the children's illnesses were handed over to the state for free diagnosis and treatment.
It seems that the child's health has been greatly saved, but what about the truth?
Victim status
Although since the outbreak of the Sanlu Group incident, the relevant departments have urgently dealt with the case, which has greatly prevented the continued harm of milk powder to children.
But unfortunately, the poisoned milk powder has been violating children for too long, and some people have already suffered irreversible damage.
The most serious children died directly, and those with milder symptoms could not exercise vigorously or even drink more water to prevent urinary tract infection.
Some children are worse off than dead, and although they still have a breath, they have to go to the hospital regularly for dialysis to maintain a normal life.
The vast majority of children have symptoms of frequent and incomplete urination, which should be seen in older people.
So this also leads to these children being ridiculed by their classmates since they were young, which has brought great damage to their psyche.
Poisoned milk powder has caused both physical and psychological damage to the children, and has also brought a huge blow to the families of these children.
Although after the outbreak of the incident, these children were able to receive free treatment.
However, it is not possible for the state to insist on paying for the child until he recovers.
And because kidney problems can also lead to other complications in the body, these children also need to take other medicines to maintain their body functions in addition to treating kidney disease.
In particular, their height is a problem because of malnutrition at an early age, which causes them to grow up to be very short in height.
In 2008, Tian Wenhua was sentenced to life imprisonment, but just three years later, her sentence was commuted to 19 years for good behavior.
In 2016, Tian Wenhua's sentence was commuted, and on August 3, 2027, she will be released from prison again.
This is unacceptable for 300,000 victimized families, and who wants to see a culprit get out of prison again?
Interestingly, even though Tian Wenhua was arrested and put in prison, people in her hometown still didn't believe that she was a bad person.
When the reporter went to Tian Wenhua's hometown to interview her neighbors and family members, they all said that Tian Wenhua was a good person, and also said that she was iron-faced and selfless, and would not open the back door to any acquaintances.
She also often helps people in her hometown, and is even more filial to her mother.
The village elders were so enthusiastic about Tian Wenhua that they didn't even understand why she was arrested and put in prison, and her mother even cried in front of the police that her daughter was a good person, saying that they had arrested the wrong person.
Whether Tian Wenhua is a good person or not, I believe that the victims of 300,000 families have the most right to speak.
Even if she is about to see the light of day again in 3 years, she will not be able to be forgiven by these people.
Even if she is forgiven by the law, she will not be able to get forgiveness from the victim.
Imagine if she hadn't been deceived by interests and insisted on making milk powder, would she have stood at the pinnacle of the milk powder industry?
Wouldn't there be nearly 20 years in prison?
epilogue
I don't know whether Tian Wenhua's return is good or bad, but it is certain that it is her incident that reminds everyone that children's diet must be taken seriously.
Don't give your child outrageously priced milk powder, and learn to read the ingredient list when buying milk powder.
Although the state has become more and more strict in the supervision of milk powder, some capitalists dare to defy the wind and continue to harm the society.
I only hope that in the future, they can grow up healthily and not be threatened by food safety.
Resources
Tian Wenhua's Drama Life: From a Rural Little Girl to the Chairman of Sanlu_News_Sina.com
Tian Wenhua, the former chairman of Sanlu Group, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court
The subtext of the trial of Tian Wenhua, the former head of Sanlu (picture)_China Economic Net - the national economic portal
Tian Wenhua, chairman of Sanluyuan, wept and repented