BEIJING - One of the parents of a baby allegedly sickened by tainted infant formula has reportedly filed China's first lawsuit in scandal.
Details of the suit are contained in a report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine. Caijing says the case is believed to be the first civil lawsuit filed in response to the melamine contamination of liquid milk and yogurt and other products made with milk in China.
It says one of the child's parents, surnamed Sun, filed a lawsuit in a court in Zhenping county seeking $22,000 from Sanlu, the company at the heart of the scandal.
The suit seeks compensation for medical, travel and other expenses incurred after the child developed kidney stones.
Four infants have died and some 54,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated formula, which has been linked to kidney stones.
China's government, meanwhile, named 15 more Chinese dairy companies it accuses of producing products contaminated with melamine. The contaminated samples were mostly milk powder products for adults.
Thirty-one samples of Chinese milk powder provided by 20 companies were found tainted with melamine after new testing, according to data seen Wednesday on China's food safety administration's website.
It was a national holiday in China and product safety officials could not be reached for comment.
More than 13,000 children have been hospitalized and 27 people arrested in connection with the contamination. The scandal has intensified over an apparent cover-up by the companies involved and the ignoring of tips and warnings from parents and doctors by safety officials.
Melamine, which is high in nitrogen, is used to make plastics and fertilizers and experts say some amount of the chemical may be transferred from the environment during food processing.
But in China's case, suppliers trying to boost output are believed to have diluted their milk, adding melamine because its nitrogen content can fool tests aimed at verifying protein content.
Levels of melamine discovered in batches tested varied widely, from as much as 6,196 milligrams a kilogram to as little 1.3 milligrams a kilogram. Chinese health officials have said no harm comes from consuming foods containing less than 0.63 milligrams a kilogram.
In the most recent tests, nine of the batches containing melamine were produced by Sanlu. A 43 per cent stake of the company is owned by New Zealand dairy co-operative Fonterra.
No date for the testing was given.
