Dairy staff detained after selling dozens of cows infected with tuberculosis
Some 42 of 94 dairy cows sold by a subsidiary of China Modern Diary in an auction in September tested positive for bovine tuberculosis or brucellosis
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 13 November, 2014, 1:20pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 13 November, 2014, 1:26pm
He Huifeng [email protected]
Gao Lina, CEO of China Modern Dairy Holdings. The company is being probed for milk cows that tested positive for tuberculosis.
Staff from China’s largest dairy company have been detained after being caught selling dozens of cows that had tested positive for tuberculosis to a farm, the Beijing News reported.
Some 42 of 94 dairy cows sold by a subsidiary of China Modern Diary in an auction in September tested positive for bovine tuberculosis or brucellosis according to local authorities, the report said.
All the sick cows have been slaughtered and their carcasses treated and buried deep underground. Both bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis can be transmitted to humans through unpasteurised dairy products.
Health authorities are now investigating how the animals came to be infected and approved for transport. Supermarkets said they had not been asked to remove any products from Baoji farm in Shaanxi – a subsidiary of China Modern Dairy – from their shelves, according to the Shanghai Daily.
Two of the four employees held work for Baoji farm as a vet and a sales director. The other two are a legal representative of Benben Farming, which bought the cows, and a local official who inspected the auction.
China Modern Dairy said on its website that the 94 dairy cows were sold to an independent third party at an auction.
It added the company has fully cooperated with the authorities by providing relevant information and records.
At the end of last year, the group had 22 farms in China with 186,838 dairy cows in total.
Mainland dairy products have come under widespread scrutiny since a scandal in 2008 involving milk powder tainted with an industrial additive called melamine, which killed six children and caused health problems such as kidney problems in 300,000 others. Among the 22 dairy companies involved in the scandal was Sanlu, a huge state-owned dairy firm that was subsequently shut down.
The dangerous substance was illegally added to products to raise apparent protein levels. All affected brands were recalled, and companies were ordered to destroy any tainted milk powder.
