Daily Lesson from Life 07 October 2008

Sorry to be dwelling on the tainted milk issue but was really surprised at the response of the Ministry of Health not to provide the number of children affected by the tainted milk! This after the lessons learned from the SARS incident and the many other coal mine accidents with fatalities.

Thought I just mentioned it here.

"China refuses to give milk scandal figures The country declined to release updated figures on how many children have been affected by tainted milk. -->Tue, Oct 07, 2008 AFP

CHINA on Tuesday declined to release updated figures revealing how many children have been affected by the tainted milk scandal, as it attempted to boost confidence in its food safety standards.

The health ministry said it had new statistics showing how many babies were believed to have been left ill by the crisis, but did not release the data and gave no indication if or when it would made the latest information public.


'We've not released the latest number of cases because it is not an infectious disease, so it's not absolutely necessary for us to announce it to the public,' a health ministry spokesman told AFP.

The World Health Organisation in Beijing said it had not been informed of the updated data either.


The foreign ministry said it was not in a position to make the figures public.

'We have no authority to make the health ministry release the figure. They are the department in charge,' said a foreign ministry spokesman.


Previous official data said milk powder tainted with the chemical melamine had claimed the lives of four children and made a further 53,000 ill.“

NEW SUBJECT:

A teenage girl fell to her death just a day before she is to appear in court for shoplifting charge.

This is a sad headline. A young life gone. There were some people in trying to comfort the policeman who made the arrest from taking self-guilt went on to blame the parents and even the teen herself. There were others who correctly asked those who attacked the teen and the parents to be mindful that a life has been lost and grieve is deep and real.

The lessons for me are:

1. young life is precious and fragile. If we come to know of any young people that have committed some wrong doings, we need to be very careful to handle the situation. We need to be sure we check the facts, understanding the situations, confirm our understanding and then make our moves and offer to help instead of to blame;

2. commenting in an inappropriate time is poor judgement on our parts. When someone died, surely we can wait to fix blame or take any other actions unless inaction will result in another tragedy! There is a time for actions and there is a time for non-action!;

3. when we did intervene and things did not turned out the way we expected it, there is no need to feel guilty about it. Surely a loss of life will create a big impact on us. We need to be strong and be rational about it. Feeling guilty will not re-set life. Actions are taken by the 'victims' themselves and we did not really push them to make that choice. I guessed there is a need to self-rationalize and let it be and move on with life.

A tragic incident. My condolences to the family of the deceased teen.