The resignation of Mr. LI Chang Jiang, Quality Chief who look after the food safety in China, due to the recent contaminated milk incident in China (caused up to 53,000 1~2 years old children sick and 4 death up-to-date) reminded me about the SARS incident back in 2003.
The sudden increased in the sicken children (from 6,000 cases jumped up to 53,000 cases within only few days) made me wonder if it is really the contaminated milk that caused this increase in the diagnostic cases or is it the TV/News media caused the fears and made the parents bring their children to see the doctors.
Chinese government was known for controlling the type of information that was released in media. Of course, during the earlier stage of SARS' spread in China, the information on SARS in China was massively controlled and hidden. It was only until the spread had reached to a critical point that the government realized that they no longer can keep this information from the general public and global community.
Today, the contaminated milk incident, in my opinion, may be overly reported and started to create a state of general public's panic. The question is, how should the public media carefully use this communication channel and relay message to their audiences. The contaminated milk issue should already been existing way before the release of the outbreak, but I think the regulatory body should act on it quickly before it starts to cause public panic.
The media is powerful, but it also need to be used wisely depends on the local situation and the message that one is trying to bring across.
Ref: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26827110/
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