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Tainted Dairy Products Seized in Western China
USAgNet - 07/12/2010

Two years after a national health scare over melamine-tainted milk products rocked China’s dairy industry, inspectors in western China’s Qinghai Province have seized 76 tons of dairy ingredients laced with the same industrial chemical, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Friday.

The seizure appeared to involve products that had escaped a nationwide recall of dairy foods after the 2008 scandal, in which at least six children died and 294,000 others were sickened.

Inspectors in Gansu Province first discovered contaminated samples of milk powder brought to them for testing by a worker at the Dongyuan Dairy Factory in adjacent Qinghai Province. Qinghai officials later found that 64 tons of raw dairy products and 12 tons of finished goods were tainted with melamine, some at up to 559 times the legal maximum.

Both the factory owner, Liu Zhanfeng, 54, and the production manager, Wang Haifeng, 37, were taken into police custody, Xinhua reported. Officials said most of the contaminated material was destined for Zhejiang Province, near Shanghai.

Melamine, used in concrete, fertilizer and plastics, mimics protein in certain food-quality tests, and some Chinese manufacturers added it to ingredients used in infant formula, chocolate, pet and animal feeds, and other products to make them appear more nutritious. When eaten in sufficient quantity, however, melamine can cause permanent kidney damage.

A year before the 2008 scandal, pet foods contaminated with Chinese-supplied melamine killed dozens of dogs in the United States and Africa and forced recalls of nearly 90 brands.

In January, inspectors in southern China’s Guizhou Province pulled dairy products out of local stores after discovering melamine in products shipped there from Shanghai and three other provinces. Xinhua reported on Friday that officials in Jilin Province, in northeastern China, had confiscated more than 1,000 packages of milk powder after finding tainted products in a market on June 22. Officials have since begun inspecting dairy plants across the region.