The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) conducted a nationwide emergency check on melamine in dairy products. Any famous-brand product that contains melamine would be deprived of its famous brand status. GAQSIQ sent 5,487 supervisors to 1,548 dairy products enterprises to supervise and assure quality control over raw milk and other raw materials. Bai Jianguo, chief of the Quality Supervision Department of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, said that as far as finished products are concerned, every batch needs to be tested and samples taken. Meanwhile, raw materials must have accounts of purchase and suppliers' qualification certificates. All additives used by enterprises must be filed in the local quality and technical supervision departments.

    In addition, the stationed supervisors are now required to check the enterprises' production standards, and to supervise production procedures, especially key control points. Each link must be inspected, with the signatures of the supervisors affixed. The State Council annulled the "examination exemption" system, demanding that every batch of dairy products must be tested. The Ministry of Agriculture will conduct special monitoring on fresh milk in 50 key dairy counties. The industry and commercial administration departments in various localities ordered the suspension of sales of any substandard product and the withdrawal of all related products. Consumers are also encouraged to file complaints.

The Hefei Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau sealing off infant formula milk powder containing melamine.

Meanwhile, Sanlu Group and its 38 subordinate enterprises were ordered to stop production until the problem is resolved. Shijiazhuang City police mobilized 800 policemen to investigate. Within seven days, they had inspected 41 dairy farms and milk collecting stations that were suspected of having added melamine to raw milk. By the morning of September 18, police summoned 87 suspects for interrogation, detained 28 of them and arrested 18, seizing more than 300 kilograms of melamine in the process.

    Tian Wenhua, chairman of the board of directors and general manager of Sanlu, has been detained, and a deputy mayor, the chief of the Bureau of Animal Husbandry and Aquatic Products, and the chief of the Food and Drug Administration of Shijiazhuang City were removed from their posts for serious negligence in the affair.