Chinese Tainted Milk Suspected of Causing Kidney Stones

More details are emerging from China about the long-term effects of poisonous melamine-tainted milk powder. According to a recent interview we received, excessive amounts of melamine are suspected of causing kidney stones in many babies and young children. They seem to be recovering through medical treatment, but the long-term effects remain disturbing.

Lianhai Zhao is one of millions of worried parents in mainland China whose children fell victim to the tainted milk scare. The condition of some children is getting worse. [Lianhai Zhao, Victim's Parent]: "We still don't know what specific damage melamine causes to children or adults." Another worried parent, Donglin Liu, says his two-year-old son is weak and easily catches cold now. His child also has lymph nodes on both sides. [Donglin Liu, Victim's Parent]: "I've done some research. Most of the children who have been drinking Sanlu milk powder for about one year all have this disease." Dabao Yang is 16 months old now. When scary facts were revealed about Sanlu milk powder, he switched to milk powder manufactured by Duomeizi and Maizancheng. By the end of May, he developed hematuria. His father, Weifeng Yang, took him to the hospital for a check-up. [Weifeng Yang, Victim's Parent]: "He has a mild renal capsule of water and a cyst. They said the milk powder caused no problems, so we didn't check it out. Later we found he had hematuria, so we went for a check-up. We found that his kidney stone had grown larger." Two-year-old Xin Yang recently had an operation to remove kidney stones. But after a while, more kidney stones started appearing. Father Yong Yang blames melamine-tainted milk powder. [Yong Yang, Victim's Parent]: "It's probably very hard for the kidney stones to be cleared out – it requires long-term treatment. We have to pay all the costs by ourselves. We have already spent 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. We have no government assistance." Earlier this year, parents of the sick children asked China's Ministry of Health to conduct research about the poisonous effect of melamine, and publicize the results. But ‘til now, there's been no response. The parents are now calling for sympathizers to lend whatever assistance they can.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ntd
• ntdtv
• news
• kidney
• stones
• tainted
• children
• suspected
• yang
• causing
• melamine
• victim
• parent
• infants
• chinese
• old
• had
• liu