Concerned doctors and parents in China are blaming an infant milk powder on the market for causing baby girls as young as 15-months-old to develop breasts, the China Daily reported Monday.
Medical tests were conducted on the girls who drank the formula, ranging from 15 months to four years of age. The results showed their hormone levels to be higher than those of an adult woman.
"The amount of hormones in the babies definitely means there's a problem," Yang Qin, the chief physician in the child care department at the Hubei Maternity and Children's Hospital said.
Qin advised that parents stop using the formula immediately, and said the powder needs to be tested.
Requests from parents for an investigation of the formula, made by Synutra, was denied by local food safety authorities, claiming they cannot conduct testing because of consumer complaints alone.
Synutra issued a statement insisting the product was safe.
"No man-made 'hormones' or any illegal substances were added during production," a spokesperson for the company said.
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