Jian Guanzhou, reporter of Sanlu infant-formula melamine scandal, says his "ideal is dead"
Jonathan Cline
* "A top Chinese investigative reporter who first exposed the scandal of melamine-tainted infant formula in 2008 has quit his job, saying his ideals have been crushed." Full article below.
* The original diybio melamine detector synbio proposal http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Jonathan_Cline/Notebook/Melaminometer hasn't come to fruition in synbio form, though a similar design has been commercially productized by other researchers in a chem-eng form. I like to believe this demonstrates that, in the future, lower-cost synthesis and synbio design tools can lead to many open science solutions.
* Naysayers on the melaminometer project were incorrect about "this problem will go away, it's already solved". Melamine contamination of milk powder & infant formula has continued, on both the grey market and commercial market. Medical studies into long term consequences come out somewhat regularly. Detecting melamine and related contaminants has become a common project for many depts, especially chem-e's.
* If anyone thinks this kind of medically-harmful "doping" doesn't happen in the U.S. or western countries, well, google "California Raw Almonds" (mandatory fumigation with propylene oxide -- a carcinogen, MSDS here www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927240 ) for an interesting example of what regulatory groups (including FDA) sneak in on U.S. consumers -- with or usually without labeling. One simple example of many others (such as the pesticide Triclosan in many consumer deodorants and cosmetics). Open science, with maturity, can crack many of these problems open just like open source projects such as Linux have solved catastrophic computing problems in days (crowd-source motivated) rather than months or years (corporate un-motivated) [I like to remember an example from Intel chips -- when open source BSD Unix and Linux provided a fix to a problem instantly and corporate teams lagged for many months: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1997/11/8577 ]. So it will be open science ultimately that saves the day. (BTW where's open science's biotech version of eff.org ? Not enough funding in the idea? Or have ideals been squashed just like Jian Guanzhou's? )
Article: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/melamine-09052012122927.html
-- quote --
Milk Scandal Reporter Quits
2012-09-05
The Chinese journalist who exposed the Sanlu tainted infant formula scandal leaves his job.
AFP
Babies hospitalized after drinking tainted milk formula in China's central Gansu province, Sept. 10, 2008.
A top Chinese investigative reporter who first exposed the
scandal of melamine-tainted infant formula in 2008 has quit his job,
saying his ideals have been crushed.
Jian Guanzhou, the first journalist to name Sanlu as the source of contaminated milk powder in a story for the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post in September 2008, announced he was leaving in a post this week on China's popular Sina Weibo microblogging service.
"I have been at the Oriental Morning Post
for 10 years, during which I have poured the most precious years of my
youth, my sorrow, my dreams and feelings into the purest of ideals,"
Jian wrote.
"Now my ideal is dead, so I'll get going. Take care, brothers!"
A
thoughtful-looking man in his 30s, Jian shot to national fame after he
began investigating home-grown dairy giant Sanlu for possible
contamination of its infant formula, after 14 babies in Gansu province
were found to have kidney problems.
Jian deduced that what the
cases had in common was their use of Sanlu powder, publishing his
conclusions on his paper's website in spite of huge pressure from
powerful company executives.
Jian was lauded for doing so even by China's tightly controlled state-run media.
'Sense of responsibility'
In March 2009, he told the state broadcaster China Radio
International what led him to take up his profession in the first place.
"Journalists
do not earn a high income," he told the station. "It's not the best job
from the economic perspective. And it's laborious and dangerous. But
why do so many people still yearn to join? The answer is the strong
sense of responsibility."
According to the article on CRI's
website, new food safety legislation passed in the wake of the melamine
scandal, in which at least six infants died and 300,000 became ill, made
Jian "feel hopeful."
"I still have faith in the future," the station quoted him as saying then.
Matter of conscience
Calls to Jian's office number went unanswered this week.
But
activist Zhao Lianhai, whose child was made ill by melamine in tainted
milk formula, said he believed Jian had quit his job as a matter of
conscience.
"My guess about why he left his job is that it takes a
lot of suffering to maintain one's conscience under the dictatorship of
the Chinese Communist Party, whether one is a journalist or even an
ordinary citizen," Zhao said.
"It's not just Mr. Jian; there are many other people who work within the system who eventually choose to leave it."
"It
is very tough if they remain; they have a very deep understanding of
the system, and they will put all their energy into it and end up
feeling completely powerless."
"I can really understand this."
'Oppression and tears'
Wang Ganlin, who heads the in-depth reporting team at the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News, said public supervision of the government shouldn't be allowed to rest entirely on the shoulders of individual journalists.
"We
really lack conscience in this country; that's why it's so precious,"
Wang said. "Personally, I can say that investigative journalists,
journalists in general, are a pretty disillusioned bunch, because we are
seeking ... justice and fairness."
"What we get instead is oppression and tears."
He said the only way forward was to protect freedom of speech through legislation.
"We have watched in great disillusionment as our neighbors in Burma have thrown off their news censorship system," Wang added.
Meanwhile, veteran investigative journalist Wang Keqin said yet another top reporter had left his job. "The chill winds of autumn are blowing, and winter is nearly upon us," he said.
Strict controls
While journalists like Jian, along with millions of Internet users,
continue to test the limits of permissible expression by drawing
attention to incipient scandals or launching campaigns via domestic
microblogging platforms, the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintains a
tight hold on the flow of information, especially in the mainstream
media.
Detailed party directives—which can arrive daily at
editors’ desks—restrict coverage related to public health, environmental
accidents, deaths in police custody, and foreign policy.
The
authorities also retain blocks on foreign social media platforms like
Twitter and have tightened controls on investigative reporting and
entertainment programming in advance of a sensitive leadership
transition later this year.
The suicide last month of a top features editor at the People's Daily, the
Chinese Communist Party official newspaper, sent shock waves through
the tightly controlled world of China's state-run media.
Xu
Huaiqian, 45, was the editor of the "Dadi" cultural supplement of the
paper when he took his own life on Wednesday after suffering severe
mental health problems, friends said.
Some microbloggers made an
immediate link between Xu's reported depression and the huge mental
pressure on journalists under China's draconian controls on its media.
And
in July, the authorities removed from their posts top editorial staff
at a Shanghai newspaper and the editor-in-chief of a cutting-edge
Guangzhou newspaper.
The 2011-2012 survey of global press freedom
carried out by the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders
put China 174th out of 179 countries and territories for journalistic
autonomy.
Reported by He Ping for RFA's Mandarin service, and
by Wei Ling for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English
by Luisetta Mudie.
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################
Cathal Garvey
Melamine toxicity is largely due to formation of Melamine Cyanurate upon
complexing with cyanuric acid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine_cyanurate
A quick look at the bonding between Melamine and Cyanuric acid, compared
with uracil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uracil
.. suggests that Melamine should be able to complex well with Uracil as
well. Obviously it'll have a higher affinity for Cyanurate due to the
neat crystal structure, but do yoghurt-strain bacteria produce much/any
cyanurate?
You could evolve an RNA sensor using an artificial selection process,
guided by a little intelligent design. Create a hairpin that obscures
the Ribosome Binding Site of a strong reporter, with some mismatches to
allow Melamine to interlace with uracil residues. Try to model it so
that the RNA molecule has uracils and stemloops at strategic
locations/distances from each other so that a highly stable structure
can form around melamine molecules, revealing the ribosome binding site
for translation of the reporter gene.
Alternatively, for a stronger cascade of reporter gene activity,
translate a trans-acting sigma factor to activate other genes, or
instead of obscuring an RBS, obscure the active site of a ribozyme that
can in turn cleave other RNAs to activate those. But, since rapid signal
propogation is less important than stability and reliability for this
application, perhaps an obscured RBS is the simplest approach.
On 06/09/12 07:06, Jonathan Cline wrote:
> Here's some sensationalism for yall.
>
> * "A top Chinese investigative reporter who first exposed the scandal of
> melamine-tainted infant formula in 2008 has quit his job, saying his ideals
> have been crushed." Full article below.
>
> * The original diybio melamine detector synbio proposal
> http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Jonathan_Cline/Notebook/Melaminometer
> hasn't come to fruition in synbio form, though a similar design has been
> commercially productized by other researchers in a chem-eng form. I like
> to believe this demonstrates that, in the future, lower-cost synthesis and
> synbio design tools can lead to many open science solutions.
>
> * Naysayers on the melaminometer project were incorrect about "this problem
> will go away, it's already solved". Melamine contamination of milk powder
> & infant formula has continued, on both the grey market and commercial
> market. Medical studies into long term consequences come out somewhat
> regularly. Detecting melamine and related contaminants has become a common
> project for many depts, especially chem-e's.
>
> * If anyone thinks this kind of medically-harmful "doping" doesn't happen
> in the U.S. or western countries, well, google "California Raw Almonds"
> www.sciencelab.com/**msds.php?**msdsId=9927240* ) for an interesting
> consumers -- with or usually without labeling. One simple example of many
> others (such as the pesticide Triclosan in many consumer deodorants and
> cosmetics). Open science, with maturity, can crack many of these problems
> open just like open source projects such as Linux have solved catastrophic
> computing problems in days (crowd-source motivated) rather than months or
> years (corporate un-motivated) [I like to remember an example from Intel
> chips -- when open source BSD Unix and Linux provided a fix to a problem
> instantly and corporate teams lagged for many months:
> http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1997/11/8577 ]. So it will
> be open science ultimately that saves the day. (BTW where's open
>
> Article: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/melamine-09052012122927.html
>
> -- quote --
>
>
> Milk Scandal Reporter Quits 2012-09-05
>
> The Chinese journalist who exposed the Sanlu tainted infant formula scandal
> leaves his job.
>
>
> Babies hospitalized after drinking tainted milk formula in China's central
> Gansu province, Sept. 10, 2008.
>
> A top Chinese investigative reporter who first exposed the scandal of
> melamine-tainted infant formula in 2008 has quit his job, saying his ideals
> have been crushed.
>
> Jian Guanzhou, the first journalist to name Sanlu as the source of
> Morning Post* in September 2008, announced he was leaving in a post this
>
> feelings into the purest of ideals," Jian wrote.
>
> "Now my ideal is dead, so I'll get going. Take care, brothers!"
>
> A thoughtful-looking man in his 30s, Jian shot to national fame after he
> began investigating home-grown dairy giant Sanlu for possible contamination
> of its infant formula, after 14 babies in Gansu province were found to have
> kidney problems.
>
> Jian deduced that what the cases had in common was their use of Sanlu
> powder, publishing his conclusions on his paper's website in spite of huge
> pressure from powerful company executives.
>
> Jian was lauded for doing so even by China's tightly controlled state-run
> media.
>
> In March 2009, he told the state broadcaster China Radio International what
> led him to take up his profession in the first place.
>
> "Journalists do not earn a high income," he told the station. "It's not the
> best job from the economic perspective. And it's laborious and dangerous.
> But why do so many people still yearn to join? The answer is the strong
> sense of responsibility."
>
> According to the article on CRI's website, new food safety legislation
> passed in the wake of the melamine scandal, in which at least six infants
> died and 300,000 became ill, made Jian "feel hopeful."
>
> "I still have faith in the future," the station quoted him as saying then.
>
> Calls to Jian's office number went unanswered this week.
>
> But activist Zhao Lianhai, whose child was made ill by melamine in tainted
> milk formula, said he believed Jian had quit his job as a matter of
> conscience.
>
> "My guess about why he left his job is that it takes a lot of suffering to
> maintain one's conscience under the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist
> Party, whether one is a journalist or even an ordinary citizen," Zhao said.
>
> "It's not just Mr. Jian; there are many other people who work within the
> system who eventually choose to leave it."
>
> "It is very tough if they remain; they have a very deep understanding of
> the system, and they will put all their energy into it and end up feeling
> completely powerless."
>
> "I can really understand this."
>
>
> Wang Ganlin, who heads the in-depth reporting team at the Guangzhou-based *Yangcheng
> Evening News*, said public supervision of the government shouldn't be
>
> "We really lack conscience in this country; that's why it's so precious,"
> Wang said. "Personally, I can say that investigative journalists,
> journalists in general, are a pretty disillusioned bunch, because we are
> seeking ... justice and fairness."
>
> "What we get instead is oppression and tears."
>
> He said the only way forward was to protect freedom of speech through
> legislation.
>
> "We have watched in great disillusionment as our neighbors in Burma have
> thrown off their news censorship system," Wang added.
>
> Meanwhile, veteran investigative journalist Wang Keqin said yet another top
> reporter had left his job. "The chill winds of autumn are blowing, and
> winter is nearly upon us," he said.
>
> *
> While journalists like Jian, along with millions of Internet users,
> continue to test the limits of permissible expression by drawing attention
> to incipient scandals or launching campaigns via domestic microblogging
> platforms, the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintains a tight hold on the
> flow of information, especially in the mainstream media.
>
> police custody, and foreign policy.
>
> The authorities also retain blocks on foreign social media platforms like
> Twitter and have tightened controls on investigative reporting and
> entertainment programming in advance of a sensitive leadership transition
> later this year.
>
> tightly controlled world of China's state-run media.
>
> Xu Huaiqian, 45, was the editor of the "Dadi" cultural supplement of the
> paper when he took his own life on Wednesday after suffering severe mental
> health problems, friends said.
>
> Some microbloggers made an immediate link between Xu's reported depression
> and the huge mental pressure on journalists under China's draconian
> controls on its media.
>
> And in July, the authorities removed from their posts top editorial staff
> at a Shanghai newspaper and the editor-in-chief of a cutting-edge Guangzhou
> newspaper.
>
> The 2011-2012 survey of global press freedom carried out by the Paris-based
> media watchdog Reporters Without Borders put China 174th out of 179
> countries and territories for journalistic autonomy.
>
> Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. *
>
> Copyright � 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
>
> -- end quote --
>
>
> ## Jonathan Cline
> ## jcl...@ieee.org
> ## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
> ########################
>
>
>
www.indiebiotech.com
twitter.com/onetruecathal
joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey
Nathan McCorkle
Here's some sensationalism for yall.
* If anyone thinks this kind of medically-harmful "doping" doesn't happen in the U.S. or western countries, well, google "California Raw Almonds" (mandatory fumigation with propylene oxide -- a carcinogen, MSDS here www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927240 ) for an interesting example of what regulatory groups (including FDA) sneak in on U.S. consumers -- with or usually without labeling.
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics