Tainted Milk Scandal: Chinese Public Relations Crisis

This piece of news came more than three weeks after the first baby died of complications suffered from the side-effects of consuming melamine-tained milk. AFP reported it:

China tries to contain tainted milk fallout

BEIJING (AFP) — China attempted Sunday to contain the fallout from the tainted milk scandal, announcing a new survey of dairy products showed no traces of melamine and promising to subsidise farmers hit by the scare.

The latest test of more than 600 batches of liquid milk from 27 cities across China showed they were free of melamine, the industrial chemical at the centre of the dairy scare, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

Products made by 75 brands were sampled including prominent ones such as Yili, Mengniu and Bright Dairy, the paper said, citing the nation's product safety watchdog.

It was the sixth round of tests in China since the milk scare broke last month, according to the watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Why this came such a long time after the first case was detected and the news was allowed spread like wild bush fire, albeit uncontrolled, was perplexing. From where I am sitting, the only assumption is that the Chinese authorities did not activate its Public Relations mechanism fast enough. Now that the fallout has reached global proportions, it will be quite a task to try to manage it, except let time be the greatest healer.

Like I said earlier, improperly managed crisis can turn into great disasters. This is one fine example.