Baby Foods

China's product-quality chief resigned Monday as the government sought to contain a national crisis over tainted baby formula that has sickened 53,000 children and implicated the biggest dairy producers in the country. The official New China News Agency said without explanation that Li Changjiang had stepped down as director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

China's troubles with tainted baby formula grew into a national crisis today as health officials reported that a third infant had died, the number of illnesses skyrocketed to 6,244 and products from 22 companies tested positive for contamination with the industrial chemical melamine. The number of infants sickened after ingesting the tainted powdered milk was five times more than what the government reported Monday.

Chinese police Monday announced the first arrests in the spreading scandal over tainted milk powder as health officials reported that a second infant had died and 1,253 others had been sickened after ingesting the formula. The arrest of two brothers in Hebei province, home of the state-owned Sanlu Group that sold the contaminated product, was among a flurry of actions announced by authorities in the wake of the latest food safety problem to hit China. Officials have seized or recalled more than 10,000 tons of Sanlu formula and have ordered a nationwide inspection of fresh milk and cattle feed.

A New York city man was arrested after he allegedly claimed in hoax Internet videos that he had poisoned millions of bottles of baby food because he wanted to kill black and Latino children. Gerber Products Co. and the Food and Drug Administration found no evidence of tampering with Gerber products. The company was flooded with complaints after people saw the videos, the FDA said. Anton Dunn, 42, was charged with sending threats in interstate commerce and falsely claiming to have tampered with a consumer product, crimes that carry a maximum of 10 years in prison.

State health officials are urging consumers to stop giving infants and other children a liquid herbal supplement intended to ease stomach discomfort. The state Department of Public Health said the product -- apple-flavored Baby's Bliss Gripe Water -- may be contaminated with a parasite that causes intestinal infections. The supplement is distributed by Mom Enterprises Inc. of San Rafael, Calif., which is recalling the product.

Groupe Danone, the maker of Dannon yogurt and Evian water, aims to strengthen its baby food business, bidding Monday to buy Royal Numico for $16.8 billion. The addition of Numico would make French-based food giant Danone one of the world's largest players in the $24-billion baby food industry, which experts expect to grow 25% by 2010.

The world's largest food and beverage company turned its attention to the younger set Thursday. Nestle agreed to pay $5.5 billion in cash for Gerber Products Co., which has 80% of the U.S. baby food market. Parsippany, N.J.-based Gerber, best known to parents for the charcoal drawing of a wide-eyed, chubby-cheeked infant on its products since 1931, is a unit of Novartis, another Swiss giant, which is focusing on healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

Cracking the baby food market isn't child's play. Dominated by industry behemoth Gerber Products Co., sales of food such as smashed peas and blended bananas for little eaters have been largely flat for several years. The news is better for premium organic or natural offerings, including those from Los Angeles start-up Nummy Nums.

Exposure to levels of iron similar to those infants get from fortified baby formula may increase the risk for developing Parkinson's disease later in life, according to a study released Thursday. It has long been known that patients with the neurodegenerative disorder have increased iron levels in their brains. However, it is unclear whether this increase is a cause or an effect of the disease.

A Venice man pleaded guilty Tuesday to trying to extort $180,000 from the Ralphs supermarket chain by threatening to place contaminated baby food on store shelves. In exchange for his guilty plea, federal prosecutors agreed to recommend that David Ian Dickinson, a 43-year-old British citizen, be sentenced to 41 to 51 months in prison. He had faced a possible 25-year sentence.