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Pinoy Olympians should take tests for melamine poisoning

abs-cbnNEWS.com | 10/03/2008 2:00 PM

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Filipino athletes who participated in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China should take medical tests to check if they drank melamine-laced milk during their stay in the communist state, the head of the Philippine delegation said Friday.

Rep. Monico Puentevella, the chief of mission of the Philippine delegation and president of the Weightlifting Association, said athletes staying at the Olympic village in Beijing may have consumed melamine-contaminated milk and milk products during the biennial games.

He said one of the biggest companies in China's dairy industry, Sanlu Group Co., was a major sponsor of the Beijing Olympics.

Puentevella said all members of the 37-man Philippine delegation should undergo medical tests to see if they were ingested melamine-tainted products. Among those who joined the delegation are athletes Marestella Torres and Henry Dagmil (athletics); Harry Tañamor (boxing); Sheila Mae Perez and Rexel Ryan Fabriga (diving); Daniel Cockley, Ryan Paolo Arabejo, Miguel Molina, James Walsh and Joan Christel Simms (swimming) and Hidilyn Diaz (weighlifting).

Wang Jianguo, spokesman of the Shijiazhuang city government, earlier revealed that they had been asked by Sanlu for help in "managing" the media response when they discovered the melamine problem on August 2, six days before the Games opened.

"Please can the government increase control and coordination of the media, to create a good environment for the recall of the company's problem products," the letter from Sanlu said.

"This is to avoid whipping up the issue and creating a negative influence in society," it added.

The scandal involved the addition of industrial chemical melamine in milk to cheat in quality tests and has affected over 50,000 babies and killed four.

China has already said the city government in Shijiazhuang sat on a report from the company about the tainting for more than a month, while Beijing hosted the Olympic Games. It said Shijiazhuang officials only reported it to the provincial government on September 9.

Beijing has already fired several Shijiazhuang officials, including the city's Communist Party chief, for the attempted cover-up. With Reuters

as of 10/03/2008 2:00 PM