By David Bandurski — CMP raised questions last week about China’s handling of the toxic milk scandal after hints emerged in a handful of Chinese media that products with production dates before September 14 (the date the scandal surrounding Sanlu Group broke) were still on store shelves and were being pushed with aggressive sales campaigns. China finally announced yesterday that it has ordered a nationwide recall of all dairy products manufactured before this date. [Front page photo by Muffet available at Flickr under Creative Commons license.]
Portions of today’s report from AFP follow:

China has urgently ordered all dairy products more than a month old to be pulled from shop shelves nationwide in its latest step to end a scandal over contaminated milk, state press reported Wednesday.
All dairy products made before September 14 will have to be tested for the industrial chemical melamine that has been responsible for killing four babies and leaving more than 53,000 others sick, Xinhua news agency said.
It was citing an “urgent notice” jointly issued by six central government departments, although there was no explanation as to why the dairy products were not immediately recalled when the scandal broke last month.
The notice was not published on the websites of those government departments, which included the health ministry, on Wednesday.

[Posted by David Bandurski, October 15, 2008, 9:58pm]