China MOH Sued by Consumer over Raw Milk Standard

The China’s Ministry of Health was sued by a consumer after its rejection to information disclosure request, in which MOH is asked to release to the public the minutes of meeting about the enactment of the controversial new national standards for raw milk. At the last court hearing, the MOH has been ordered to reply once again to the information disclosure request.

The Raw Milk ( GB19301-2010), which was published by MOH in 2010 sparked controversy over the protein content and bacterial counts, since the acceptable level for protein content has been lowered from 2.95% to 2.8%, and the allowable limit for bacterial counts has been lossened from 500,000 per millilitre to 2 million per millilitre, compared with the former standards in 1986.

Protein content is ordered to be over 3% in most developed countries such as Denmark and New Zealand, while China decreased the acceptable percentage rather than to catch up with the international level. With regard to the bacterial counts per milliliter, the Chinese acceptable level is 20 times that of the European Union and United States, which is under 100,000. The loosened standard was complained by the media and consumers as “25-year-step-backwards”. Rumor floated that the new raw milk standard is made under a "black-box" by domestic dairy industry.

In fact, some dairy companies were involved in the drafting of the standard. The output from raw milk base falls short of the market demand, which forces the companies into heavy reliance on backward and small-scale dairy farms. The raw milk generated from these farms does not easily meet high quality requirements in protein content and bacterial count limits because of their low rearing level and nonstandard milking process. There is suspicion that the issue of the new standard is an attempt to protect the interests of big companies.