Chinese official quits amid milk scandal

BEIJING, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- A top government safety official quit Monday in the deadly tainted-milk scandal that has sickened more than 50,000 babies in China, authorities said.

Li Changjiang, who oversaw quality control in food products, was the most senior official to lose his job since the government began investigating the poisoning of milk products with melamine, an industrial chemical, that has killed four children, The New York Times reported Monday.

China has arrested 19 people suspected of adding melamine to watered-down milk to artificially inflate protein counts, Xinhua, China's state run news agency, reported Monday.

More than 10,000 babies have been hospitalized and authorities now suspect Sanlu, the country's largest producer of baby formula, received complaints about milk months ago but waited until Aug. 2 to tell local authorities, who waited until Sept. 9 to tell provincial authorities, the Times reported.