China's Baby Diaper Crisis Deepens as Two More Brands Test Positive for Reproductive Toxin - Vision Times
According to a June 25, 2026 report byNew Yellow River(新黄河), republished by Sina Finance, two new laboratory test reports began circulating online. The reports, issued by Lianxin Testing (Jiangsu) Co. , Ltd. ,. . .
According to a June 25, 2026 report byNew Yellow River(新黄河), republished by Sina Finance, two new laboratory test reports began circulating online. The reports, issued by Lianxin Testing (Jiangsu) Co. , Ltd. , showed that baby diapers sold under the brands Mu Zhi Tian Shi and Babycare’s Camellia line contained formamide, a chemical the EU classifies as a Category 1B reproductive toxin linked to reproductive harm in animal studies. Both reports were issued by Lianxin Testing (Jiangsu) Co. , Ltd. The Mu Zhi Tian Shi sample, received on June 22 and tested on June 24 and 25, showed a formamide level of 384 milligrams per kilogram. The Babycare Camellia sample, received on June 21 and tested on June 23 and 24, showed a higher level of 414 milligrams per kilogram. Both measurements used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, a standard analytical method. After the reports spread online, a journalist contacted Lianxin Testing for comment. A company spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of both reports, but added that the Mu Zhi Tian Shi report had been withdrawn on the morning of June 25 for re-testing. No re-test results had been released; the Babycare report remained in circulation. “Whatever a client asks us to test, that is what we test,” the spokesperson said. How the crisis beganReports of the problem first appeared in early June, when parents began posting online that their infants were developing reddened and broken skin around the buttocks after wearing certain domestic diaper brands. The symptoms cleared up once they stopped using the products. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTERFor the best of our weekly content！There is something wrong, please try again laterSuccessYou are now signed up for our newsletterSuccessCheck your email to complete sign upChina’s Economic Information Daily, published under theXinhua News Agency, assigned reporters to investigate. The paper commissioned an independent laboratory to test samples from several domestic brands, and on June 18 published the results: multiple diaper lines from three brands, Huggies China, Babycare, and Bibababy (碧芭宝贝), tested positive for formamide. In a striking personal experiment, one of the paper’s journalists wore a diaper from the tested batch for a single night and had his blood tested before and after. His blood formamide concentration had nearly doubled overnight. Formamide is an industrial solvent with well-documented reproductive toxicity; the EU has placed it on its Substances of Very High Concern list. China has separately banned it from cosmetics. Its presence in a product worn directly against infant skin for hours at a time alarmed parents and health researchers. The industry attacked the reporting while regulators stayed silent for weeksOne day after the Economic Information Daily published itsfindings, the Sanitary Products Professional Committee of the China Paper Association, an industry trade body representing diaper manufacturers, issued a statement claiming the article’s testing methodology, data disclosure, and causal reasoning all contained “obvious flaws,” and that products on the market were “safe and under control. ”The three implicated brands then released laboratory reports they had commissioned themselves. Each claimed that “authoritative third-party testing” had found no formamide in their products. Babycare went further, announcing it had filed a police complaint against social media accounts for spreading what it called false information. Wang Wenzhi, the Economic Information Daily journalist who led the original investigation,posted a rebuttal online. He accused the brands of selecting their own test samples or submitting specially prepared show samples rather than off-the-shelf products. He rejected the fabrication claim and redirected attention to the central question: where was the formamide in children’s blood coming from? He demanded the government establish a national-level independent investigation committee. On June 22, Hong Kong’s HUGGIES brand, which shares a parent company with Huggies China but operates independently, released a third-party test report confirming that three of its diaper products sold in Hong Kong contained no detectable formamide. Later the same day, four Chinese government bodies, including the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Health Commission, announced a joint investigation into the formamide allegations. The announcement came weeks after the crisis began, and only after public anger threatened lasting market damage. According to third-party e-commerceanalytics datacited by the financial outlet Langjing News, all three brands have seen daily sales collapse since the crisis broke. Bibababy’s flagship store sales have fallen to roughly 4 percent of pre-crisis levels, the sharpest drop among the three. Huggies China is down to around 10 percent. Babycare, the least affected, has still seen daily sales fall to roughly one-fifth. Chinese parents are flooding Hong Kong’s stores, depleting diaper shelvesMainland parents, no longer willing to buy domestic diapers, have traveled to Hong Kong in large numbers to purchase imported products. In border-adjacent districts including Sheung Shui, Tuen Mun, and Sha Tin, pull-up diapers and medium-to-large sizes ran out of stock. Retail chains at major crossings have introduced temporary limits of two to four packs per customer to protect supply for local residents. The rush recalls the 2008 melamine milk powder disaster, when dairy products from China’s Sanlu Group were found to contain melamine, an industrial chemical added to artificially inflate protein readings during quality tests. The contamination caused kidney stones and organ failure in hundreds of thousands of Chinese infants and killed at least six children. Mainland parents flooded into Hong Kong to buy imported baby formula; the resulting shortages eventually prompted the Hong Kong government to enact emergency purchase restrictions in 2013. Under that ordinance, anyone leaving Hong Kong may carry no more than 1. 8 kilograms, roughly two standard tins, of infant formula within a 24-hour period. Violators face fines of up to HK$500,000 and up to two years in prison. The ordinance remains in force today. A familiar pattern of regulatory capture and official complicityCritics of China’s regulatory system point to two structural factors behind these recurring crises: weak enforcement and systematic collusion between government officials and the industries they nominally oversee. Warning signs accumulate. Consumers complain. Investigative journalists document the harm. The implicated industry attacks the reporting, enlists industry-aligned trade bodies to provide institutional cover, and releases its own tests. Regulators remain largely passive. Only when public anger and economic damage reach a scale that threatens political stability do authorities announce formal investigations. By that point, some damage is already irreversible. For the families whose infants have been wearing contaminated diapers for months or years, a belated investigation committee offers cold comfort.