More Melamine Found, this time in Africa

by: Asinus Asinum Fricat

Wed Nov 26, 2008 at 13:24:04 PM PST

The recent discovery of abnormal quantities of melamine in some ice creams and bulk milk powders marketed in the country has raised fresh fears over safety of dairy products. It has left many critics wondering whether the toxic chemical has been in the system long before now and responsible for the increasing cases of kidney failure.

Bulk milk powder, usually imported from China, is used in making almost all confectioneries from bread, meat pie, cake, candy, chocolate, ice cream, yoghurt, biscuit, sweet to mention but a few.

In recent times, melamine, a plastic-making industrial compound that was added to milk powder to cheat quality tests, has been found in cartons of milk and some dairy exports in China. It has also been shown that the chemical sometimes accidentally leaches into the food supply in low levels, from things like plastic dinnerware. It can also seep in from some pesticides and fertilizers.

Medical experts said extremely high levels of melamine, as found in the Chinese ice creams, milk powders and baby formulas, can cause kidney stones, and in extreme cases can bring on life-threatening kidney failure. They, however, said although melamine may already be in the global food chain, humans are unlikely to get sick due to low levels of the chemical. Well, color me skeptical here.

More worrisome is the fact that some of the over 500,000 children, who have fallen ill in China after being fed with milk formula contaminated with melamine, have developed 'crystals' in their kidneys.

Medical experts said in addition to causing kidney stones, melamine could potentially trigger far more serious complications by crystallizing and then blocking tiny tubes in the kidneys. They say crystals may be even more troublesome than stones. They can potentially impair kidney function especially when large numbers of them suddenly form at the same time, blocking tubules in the kidneys.

But while scientists say it is not dangerous to ingest small amounts, they cannot be definitive because there have been no tests on melamine effects in humans.

That leaves consumers worldwide, particularly parents, worried about food products from China, and even those made elsewhere with ingredients imported from Chinese companies.

Critics fear that the rising cases of kidney failure and the high under-five mortality rate in the country may not be unconnected with the poisonous chemical.

Besides baby milk formula, dairy-based products from yogurt to chocolate and eggs have been contaminated with melamine. An admission by a Chinese state-run media that the industrial chemical is regularly added to animal feed in China fueled fears that the problem could be more widespread, affecting fish, meat and God knows what else.

This latest China food scandal has sparked tests for melamine in a variety of Chinese-made products from milk and chocolate bars to yogurt exported around the world, including products in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia, leading to items being pulled from shop shelves.

The local National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has detected toxic quantities of melamine in ice creams and milk powder imported from China by Londa Foods International Limited.

NAFDAC said the milk powder and ice creams confiscated from the company, located beside Texaco petrol station off Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Isheri Town, Ogun State, contains 21.1 mg/kg of melamine, which is far above the acceptable maximum limit of 2.5 mg/kg.

Nigeria adopted the Chinese standards, which says any product containing melamine above 1mg/kg is unacceptable. In the United States, the maximum limit is 2.5mg/kg.