OKed Formula

A clinical investigation has found no evidence that milk powder made by a Chinese company caused three infant girls to grow breasts, China's Ministry of Health announced on August 15.

Ministry spokesman Deng Haihua said at a press conference that the probe found the hormone content of the milk powder to be within normal standards.

Earlier this month, parents and doctors in Hubei Province were reported voicing fears that milk powder produced by Nasdaq-listed Synutra International had caused at least three infant girls to develop prematurely.

Deng said food safety experts led by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tested 42 samples of Synutra products and 31 samples of dairy products from other producers.

Deng said the tests found no exogenous sex hormones in sample products, and the levels of endogenous estrogen hormones and pregnancy hormones found in the sample products were within normal range.

Favored Policy

A majority of netizens polled "unconditionally support" the real-name registration system for playing online games, according to a recent survey.

The Ministry of Culture issued the Interim Provision of Real-Name Registration of Online Gaming earlier in August in order to prevent minors from getting addicted to cyber warfare.

Of the 12,714 netizens from all over China who responded to China Youth Daily's online survey in the second week of August, more than half agreed with the new measure. Half of them claimed to be online game players. Among them, 63 percent were in favor of real-name registration.

The survey also indicated that more than 60 percent felt the current real-name registration system "lacks details and will be difficult to implement."

Best Employer

State-owned enterprises have overtaken foreign-owned companies to become the first choice for employment among this year's new graduates, according to a recent survey.

The survey, recently released by ChinaHR, one of the country's leading online employment agencies, polled 200,000 students from more than 700 universities from November 2009 to May this year.

Among the survey's top 50 best employers 46 were local companies, including 33 state-owned enterprises.

According to the survey, there are only four foreign companies in the top 50; Microsoft, Google, Jardine Matheson and Procter and Gamble, down from 21 last year.

Foreign companies, which have traditionally been sought after by graduates, were hard hit by the international financial crisis, which accounts for the shift to state-owned enterprises.

Undeterred Smoking

A tobacco usage survey of Chinese people released on August 17 shows a big increase in the rate of exposure to secondhand smoke. The rate jumped from 53 percent in 2002 to about 73 percent in 2010.

The survey in China was conducted by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention from December last year through March, covering more than 13,000 people over the age of 15.

Nearly 770 million non-smokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, the survey said.

"It seems that little improvement was made in the exposure to secondhand smoke," said Yang Gonghuan, Director of the tobacco control office of the CDC.

According to the survey, more than 58 percent of non-smokers noticed smoking in government buildings, which ranked second in the type of buildings that had public smoking, after restaurants.