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Despite governmental pressure to "drop the issue," parents in China whose children died from complications of melamine-laced milk are taking a very western approach -- they are suing.
It seems like a lifetime ago that the Chinese contaminated milk scandal was in the news. But it was just September. In any other time the scandal would have dominated the news for weeks. It is a huge scandal.
But a financial meltdown,an expensive bailout,Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe, presidential debates, and an election sucked up all the news oxygen.
Around 93,000 children become ill--many with kidney stones--- because dairy producers laced watered-down milk with a toxic chemical to fool inspectors about the protein content.
Officially, the death count from the contaminated milk stands at four infants.
However, many believe there were many more unreported deaths because it took the government and the dairy producers months to alert anyone about the contamination.
While many of us in the western world were focused on money and politics, griefing families in China decided to defy the government and sue over the deaths of their children.
Radio Free Asia is reporting that some of the parents plan to sue a subsidiary of a Chinese milk powder manufacturer based in Maryland.
A member of one of the affected families surnamed Liu said Qingdao Shengyuan Milk Co. Ltd., a dairy products manufacturer based in the eastern China city of Qingdao, had a Delaware-registered investment subsidiary with offices in Maryland, rendering it subject to U.S. law.
“We have signed a contract with a Maryland-based lawyer who will represent us in this collective compensation suit,” Liu said.
“There are milk victim parents who are willing to pay for the legal fees and expenses and who want to pursue justice in the United States,” he said.
Associated Press reporter Charles Hutzler has a gut-wrenching piece about the families who are coping with the deaths of their babies.Hutzler puts a human face on these deaths and he also reports that these parents want to sue.
It's hard to say how the government will handle this matter," said Zhang Xinkui, a Beijing-based lawyer amassing evidence of the contamination for a possible lawsuit. "There may be many children who perhaps died from drinking Sanlu powdered milk or perhaps from a different cause. But there's no system in place to find out."
In the weeks since Xiaokai's death, her father and his older brother have talked to lawyers and beseeched health officials, with no result.
"My heart is in pain," said her father, Li Xiaoquan, a short, taciturn farmer with hooded eyes. From a corner of his farmhouse courtyard in central China's wheat and corn flatlands, he pulls a worn green box that once held apples and is now stuffed with empty pink wrappers of the Sanlu Infant Formula Milk Powder that Xiaokai nursed on. "We think someone, the company, should compensate us."
The parents of 6 months old Yi Kaixuan are also suing.
The first sign of trouble was powder in the baby's urine. Then there was blood. By the time the parents took their son to the hospital, he had no urine at all.
Kidney stones were the problem, doctors told the parents. The baby died on May 1 in the hospital, just two weeks after the first symptoms appeared. His name was Yi Kaixuan. He was 6 months old.
The parents filed a lawsuit on Monday in the arid northwest province of Gansu, where the family lives, asking for compensation from Sanlu Group, the maker of the powdered baby formula that Kaixuan had been drinking. It seemed like a clear-cut liability case; since last month, Sanlu has been at the center of China's biggest contaminated food crisis in years. But as in two other courts dealing with related lawsuits, judges have so far declined to hear the case.
According to the International Herald,"Government officials have told parents and lawyers in the milk cases tat their complaints can be resovlved through out-of court- compensation payments."
Lawyers in Henan, a poor backward province, have faced more harassment from local officials than lawyers elsewhere. At least 20 of the lawyers who have dropped off the volunteer list are from Henan. On Sept. 27, officials from the province's judicial bureau, which administers the courts and legal licenses, met with lawyers to discourage them from taking the cases.
A working brief issued Oct. 7 by the national volunteer group said the officials had directly told the lawyers not to give any legal aid to the parents.
Chang said the pressure