Baby Formula

It was painful to read our stories Sunday about two abused teenagers who died after spending years bouncing around Los Angeles County's child welfare system. Times reporters Garrett Therolf and Kim Christensen chronicled the tumultuous lives of Miguel Padilla, who hanged himself at 17, and Lazhanae Harris, a 13-year-old girl found stabbed to death last spring. The stories spotlighted ineptitude in a system charged with keeping children safe. But one passage stopped me cold, and left me angry not just at a system's failures, but also at the frailties of a family: Lazhanae was the third of nine children of 33-year-old Shamana Johnson, a single mother who had served time in prison and had a history of substance abuse.

Swiss food and nutrition giant Nestle plans to shell out $11.9 billion to buy Pfizer's nutrition unit, whose products include baby formula brands SMA and Promil. The division is expected to reel in $2.4 billion in sales this year and gets 85% of its revenue from emerging markets, whose large and rapidly growing populations are a key target for Nestle. Pfizer has the fifth-largest infant formula business in the world, according to research group Euromonitor International, ranked behind Nestle, Mead-Johnson Nutrition Co., Groupe Danone and Abbott Laboratories, respectively.

The baby formula recall is taking its toll -- online. Abbott Nutrition announced Wednesday that it was recalling certain types and lots of powdered formula under the Similac brand because beetles were found in one of its production areas. The Illinois-based company said there's no health risk related to the bug scare, but anxious parents overwhelmed the call center and crashed the website before the company shored up communication problems Thursday, according to media reports.

The baby formula recall is taking its toll -- online. Abbott Nutrition announced Wednesday that it was recalling certain types and lots of powdered formula under the Similac brand because beetles were found in one of its production areas. The Illinois-based company said there's no health risk related to the bug scare, but anxious parents overwhelmed the call center and crashed the website before the company shored up communication problems Thursday, according to media reports.

When Carnation Co. entered the $1.6-billion baby formula market last year with two new products, Good Start H. A. and Good Nature, it drew instant flak. The FDA and nine state attorneys general pounced on Good Start, questioning whether it was really, as advertised, "hypoallergenic." The American Academy of Pediatrics pounced on Carnation for advertising formula to consumers at all. Often linked, these are two separate issues.

Two Lynwood residents were arrested Saturday after allegedly shoplifting $600 worth of baby formula from a grocery store then pulling a gun on employees in the parking lot and fleeing, police said. La Palma police officers arrested Oscar Bell, 42, and Laura Barnette, 33, after stopping the couple on the Artesia Freeway near Bellflower, said Fullerton Sgt. Bonnie Wolf. Smith's Food & Drug Center employees followed Bell and Barnette to the store parking lot at 914 W. Orangethorpe Ave.

A United Nations conference to promote breast-feeding denounced last week the practice of distributing baby formula free to new mothers, particularly those in developing nations. The conference urged closer regulation of the marketing of baby formula to encourage breast-feeding, which is considered a key to lowering infant mortality. Doctors said even mothers who have tested positive for the AIDS virus should breast-feed.

The Orange County Rescue Mission has started a drive to collect baby formula for needy infants who are no longer eligible to receive nutritional assistance through a county administered food program. Mission spokesman Jim Palmer said his agency is seeking nearly 3,000 cans of baby formula to help children turned away from the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Food Program, which last week was forced to reduce services because of a funding shortfall.

It was a professional hit, but with an unlikely target. In February, and in broad daylight, a man entered the Safeway store on Columbia Pike in Arlington, Va., headed to aisle 11 with his grocery cart and then fled through the loading dock area with $945 in stolen merchandise. The take: seven cases of powdered baby formula. Forget electronic gadgets and faux Rolex watches.

The Nestle food company is recalling 2.5 million cans of baby formula because they may not have been properly sterilized, the company and the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. Nestle of Glendale, Calif., recalled 33 batches of the formula after it was discovered the processing of the concentrate formula may not have reached high enough temperatures to sterilize the product. No illnesses have been reported, and Nestle said they have tested the batches and found no problems.

In an attempt to head off a mounting public relations crisis, the Chinese government said locally made milk formula is not what caused early puberty in baby girls as young as 4 months. China's Ministry of Health said Sunday that there was no link between the infant formula made by the Qingdao-based company Synutra International and reports by families using the product that their infant daughters had grown breasts. After testing 73 samples of formula from Synutra and other international and domestic brands, the ministry concluded that the milk powder displayed normal levels of the hormones that might have caused the early development.

The state Assembly passed a bill Thursday to ban the chemical Bisphenol-A from baby bottles and other items that come in contact with small children. The Toxin-Free Toddlers and Babies Act, or SB 797, would ban the use of BPA in feeding products, including formula, for children 3 years old and younger. BPA has been linked with health problems such as infertility, autism, asthma, hyperactivity and breast cancer. In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reversed its long-held position that BPA posed no concern, calling for more studies of the artificial hormone that often is used in shatter-proof plastic baby bottles, sippy cups and linings of cans, including those containing baby formula.

CHINA Two executed in baby formula case China executed a dairy farmer and a milk salesman for their roles in the sale of contaminated baby formula -- severe punishment that Beijing hopes will assuage public anger. The men were the only people put to death for a scheme to boost profits by lacing milk powder with the industrial chemical melamine; 19 other people were convicted and received lesser sentences. At least six children died after drinking the adulterated formula, and more than 300,000 were sickened.

It was painful to read our stories Sunday about two abused teenagers who died after spending years bouncing around Los Angeles County's child welfare system. Times reporters Garrett Therolf and Kim Christensen chronicled the tumultuous lives of Miguel Padilla, who hanged himself at 17, and Lazhanae Harris, a 13-year-old girl found stabbed to death last spring. The stories spotlighted ineptitude in a system charged with keeping children safe. But one passage stopped me cold, and left me angry not just at a system's failures, but also at the frailties of a family: Lazhanae was the third of nine children of 33-year-old Shamana Johnson, a single mother who had served time in prison and had a history of substance abuse.

A national consumers group and the Illinois attorney general demanded a Food and Drug Administration recall of several major brands of infant formula in which traces of melamine were detected. The FDA reiterated that the baby food was safe and that the extremely low levels of contamination did not present a health danger.

The industrial chemical melamine was found in a sample of infant formula made in the U.S. in a "trace" amount that poses no health concern, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The finding isn't surprising because the chemical is allowed in can liners and manufacturing, said Judy Leon, an FDA spokeswoman. Of 77 samples tested, only one was found to have melamine, said Leon, who declined to identify the brand. "There's no reason for concern, because these are trace levels," Leon said.

A Mission Viejo man was arrested Friday in an investigation of counterfeit Similac baby formula that turned up on Northern California store shelves last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. Ivy K. Ong, 52, was arrested on suspicion of trafficking in counterfeit goods, and a warrant was out for a second person, the FDA said in a news release. The counterfeit manufacturing operation was also seized, the FDA said.

A new mother who checks out of the maternity ward at Long Beach Memorial Hospital often goes home with a little gift: a pastel box containing a teddy bear, pacifier and a free sample of baby formula. The gift comes compliments of one of the major formula makers, which see to it that there are always enough samples for every new mother--often as many as 10--who leaves the hospital daily.

First it was baby formula. Then, dairy-based products from yogurt to chocolate. Now chicken eggs have been contaminated with melamine, as an admission by state-run media that the industrial chemical is regularly added to animal feed in China fueled fears Friday that the problem could be more widespread, affecting fish, meat and other products. Peter Dingle, a toxicity expert at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, said, however, that aside from the tainted formula that killed at least four Chinese infants and left 54,000 children hospitalized just over a month ago, it was unlikely that humans would get sick from melamine in meat, the amounts would be too low. But Dingle and others said China should have cracked down sooner on feed companies that have boosted their earnings by using the chemical, which is normally used to make plastic and fertilizers.

Chinese authorities arrested 12 more people in connection with tainted baby formula, said Shi Guizhong, spokesman for the Hebei provincial police. The official said that brought the number detained to 18. Police also confiscated nearly 500 pounds of melamine, the chemical that was added to milk powder, igniting a widening food safety crisis. Health Minister Chen Zhu said he expected the number of affected babies to increase as "more and more parents take kids to the hospital." Three infants have died and more than 6,200 have fallen ill.