You're right. I found this on Urbanlegends.com in the FAQ section

Does the barcode number indicate the country of origin of a product?

No it doesn't. The 3-digit prefix code indicates which GS1 numbering organization has allocated the block of numbers to the company. Once the company has been assigned the block of numbers, they self assign each individual number in the block to a given product. For example, a company may have it's headquarters in South Africa. The GS1 organization in South Africa has the code "600", but all the products of the company may be manufactured in England. The English-made products would still have the "600" prefix code. The prefix code is a way to have 70-plus GS1 member organizations issuing numbers without having to worry about duplicate numbers. The 3-digit prefix indicates the country of the GS1 organization that issued the block of numbers, not the country of origin of the product. GS1 (the international organization that administers UPC and EAN) has a clear statement that the prefix DOES NOT indicate the country of origin of the product. A list of country codes can be found on the UPC & EAN Page.

China: 6 babies may have died from tainted milk

       A toddler drinking from a bottle. China said Monday that a total of 294,000 children had fallen ill from …
 – China's Health Ministry said six babies may have died after consuming tainted milk powder, up from a previous official toll of three, and announced a six-fold increase in its tally of infants sickened in the scandal — to nearly 300,000.

It was the first time since Sept. 21 that health authorites have revised the total number of babies sickened by milk powered adulterated with the industrial chemical melamine. The previous total was about 50,000.

The ministry said in a statement late Monday that authorities across the country found that 294,000 babies had suffered from urinary problems after consuming milk powder tainted with melamine.

"Most of the sickened children received outpatient treatment only for small amounts of sand-like kidney stones found in their urinary systems, while a part of the patients had to be hospitalized for the illness," the statement said.

trudy, can you include links?

Finally, the numbers of those stricken have been raised, but you can bet we're hearing only the tip of the iceberg.  I'd like to know the REAL numbers of sickened children, not that I want to think even more have been affected.  I do NOT believe for one second that only six babies died, not at all, not with the strict control of the media there.  They hid the contamination for months and months before the Olympics, knowing babies were getting sick and dying.  With pay offs to the affected families, strong-arming the lawyers NOT to represent the families, and only allowing "trusted" news reporters into the dairy producing areas to investigate, why should we believe anything?

"Most of the sick children were found to have only sand-like stones in their urinary systems."

Can you believe it?  Only "sand-like stones."  Well, when those "sand-like" stones blocked the kidney tubules, THAT'S what killed the pets! 

http://english.china.com/zh_cn/news/china/11020307/20081202/15215271.html

My heart goes out to the affected families.

And, now we're allowing 1 ppm of melamine OR cyanuric acid in infant formula?  What is this?  Pick your own poison?

The FDA had better test EACH batch of formula for each toxin.  Anyone think that will happen?  NEVER.  We're playing Russian roulette here as well.

Keep writing letters and making phone calls, everyone.  As it stands, we're going to $#&% in a hand basket, and our government and regulatory agencies show they just don't care for human safety!  It's profits for big businesses that's the most important.  They must be allowed to import cheap unknown, untested ingredients so their profits are bigger.   And, this is FREE TRADE?  No, it's GREED TRADE! 

 
 

Purringfur that quite a good take on it "GREED TRADE". As long as the cash registers ring up 'SALE, SALE, SALE' will they still be laughing all the way to the bank as more are exposed to the adulterated products and quite possibly in turn, turn around and sue the producers of tainted, adulterated products?

3cat quite a chilling line from the AP reporter Gillion Wong as it sure seems to be coming true as more and more about this toxin, melamine, is found out and reported to the public.

Seems to me that "sand-like" stones in tiny infant bodies are proportionally pretty big.

I can tell you that even "sand-like" kidney stones are no picnic to pass.

Furthermore, an accumulation of even "sand-like" stones in a ureter can cause a blockage, if there are enough of them going through at once.  And you don't want to know what a blocked ureter is like. 

I agree with straybaby.  The sanity of the people who said this is seriously questionable.

I've dealt with it in a cat and a dalmatian. The Dalmatian required surgery to clean out his bladder. I still have the vial of stones around here somewhere. It was one of two that they filled. It was about 10 days before his urine was clear of blood from the bladder cleaning. The surgery took much longer than anticipated because he had so many stones/sediment. Unless a mother is frequently testing her child's urine for crystals and sediment, she's not even going to be aware of the build up until . . . . Dalmatian owners that have dogs that have had issues test frequently and also monitor urine PH. Other Dalmatian owners just test as a precaution. Also, there's the special diet that we feed to keep the uric acid/purines in check. Is this what mothers are going to have to do now? I wonder if health insurance will cover the type of care these infants may need? The FDA should be required to drink formula with all of their meals.

works for me JJ.