Thirty-six other people, mostly children, were taken to hospital after drinking the tainted milk.
Tainted milk scandals in China have created distrust of local brands, with families willing to pay a premium for foreign brands.
BBC: Dutch government to probe export of milk formula to China
Three children who died after drinking tainted milk appear to have been the victims of deliberate poisoning, Chinese state media says.
Last September, at the height of the scandal over melamine-tainted milk, rumours began to spread that Baidu had accepted payment to expunge stories on the subject from its search results.
The Sina Weibo sensation, for example, has fused in the minds of ordinary Chinese people the inequities of state crony quasi-capitalism, the deaths of babies drinking tainted milk and people dying in a bullet train derailment.
The NPC is expected to set up a single food and drug agency following a spate of food safety scandals, including tainted milk and recycled gutter oil, sources tell Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
Immediately, the rats stopped running to the left (the side with the tainted chocolate milk).
FORBES: Could We One Day Switch Off Bad Habits in Our Brains?
Similar worries seem to have prompted the arrest in November of Zhao Lianhai, who had been campaigning on behalf of the parents of some 300, 000 children who were affected by milk powder tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical, in 2008.
Since the last election, the public has put up with revelations involving tainted beef, bad milk, health-and-safety risks at theme parks, cushy contracts for road-related companies, and the revelation that cracks in many nuclear reactors had gone unreported and unrepaired for more than a decade.
Forbes: For people in the U.S. and the West, the idea that Chinese companies would knowingly sell milk powder that was tainted and harmful to children is appalling.
FORBES: On The Front Line In China: Challenging Business Ethics
应用推荐