The 2008 Milk Scandal Revisited
https://www.forbes.com/sites/yanzhonghuang/2014/07/16/the-2008-milk-scandal-revisited/#27e399854105
Looking back at the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, hundreds of thousands of babies fell ill and dozens of companies were found guilty of tampering with their products to unsafe standards. The effects of the scandal are still seen today, with laws passed for food regulation in China now. In addition, people still struggle trusting Chinese companies for milk formula as a result, and often look to import baby food from other countries instead. Given how long it has been since the scandal passed, and how parents still turn to products from outside of China, it seems that domestic countries will still struggle regaining the people’s trust in the foreseeable future.
The scandal itself was a network cascade of sorts. At first, one large company was implicated in the scandal, and suffered for it. However, as more and more companies were found guilty of this malpractice, the public became increasingly skeptical of the Chinese milk formula industry as a whole. Once the threshold was passed, nobody trusted domestic countries at all. This cascading effect is still seen even today, as people rely on buying products from outside of China to care for their babies. Now, just like a normal cascade model, it is difficult to swing the public’s opinion in the other direction. The threshold for gaining the people’s trust is incredibly high – still too high for the milk formula industry to convince the Chinese population that their formula is safe again. At some point, there may be another cascade to regain the people’s trust, but until then, importing baby formula will remain the popular choice.