Tainted Chinese baby milk powder 'causes baby girls to grow breasts'

Health authorities in China have ordered an investigation into claims that a batch of powdered baby milk has caused children as young as four months old to grow breasts. Tests were ordered on infant formula made by the NASDAQ-listed company Synutra after reports surfaced in China's state media that three children fed on the formula had entered into precocious puberty. Synutra, one of China's largest producers of baby milk, issued a statement saying it had "100 per cent confidence" in its product and promising to co-operate with any investigation to restore consumer confidence.

"We have worked closely with state authorities, including the Chinese Dairy Association and the office of food safety, to test product samples, to prove that these claims are false. We expect that the results of these tests should be made public soon," added Liang Zhang, Synutra's chief executive. Declaring its products "safe", the company said the media reports were inaccurate and misleading and that its milk had passed all government tests for hormone dosage. However, the company's share price fell 27pc on Monday in response to the news.



The original cases centred on three children living in three different towns around Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, in central China, who were brought to hospital last month after they showed abnormal physical developments. According to an investigation by Beijing's "Health Times" newspaper, laboratory tests on the children showed levels of estradiol, a female sex hormone, and another hormone, lactogen, were between three and seven times expected levels. "The amount of hormones in the babies definitely means there's a problem," Yang Qin, the chief physician in the child care department at the Hubei Maternity and Children's Hospital, told the paper last weekend.

Another doctor cautioned that a full analysis of the milk powder would be required before any links between the milk and the disease could be drawn. "Precocious puberty is a very complex disease, we cannot conclude that milk powder has problems just because three children drank the same brand and also had the same symptoms," said Professor Yao Hui, Wuhan Children's Hospital endocrinology specialist. "The only way is to test the milk powder, to see if it contains estrogen, in order to know the truth," she added.