Category: Health and Medicine

The day after yet more melamine in food warnings, this time in Bangladesh where eight imported powdered milk products have been banned and in Italy, it is reported that the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, has apologised for the Chinese government’s complacency in the melamine in milk scandal. Tainted baby formula milk has killed at least four babies in China and led to the hospitalisation of tens of thousands; it has also caused undue worry for parents the world over.

“We feel that though the incident occurred in enterprises, the government is also responsible,” Wen said in a rare interview with Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science magazine. The rare one on one interview took place on September 30 and was published in the US journal yesterday. Wen, apparently expressed sorrow and promised new food regulations after the melamine-tainted milk debacle.

Previously, the head of China’s food quality watchdog, Li Changjiang, resigned “with state approval” back in September, at the height of the scandal, according to the Xinhua news agency. And, yesterday, New Zealand’s Stuff suggested that organised criminal gangs may have been behind the tainted milk that brought down the Chinese operations of the country’s food giant Fonterra.

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Sciencebase readers following the melamine story and concerned about melamine contaminated foods, will hopefully be interested in the latest expert opinion on the scandal.

Roberta Weiss, a nephrologist (kidney doctor) emailed to provide Sciencebase readers with some more background on melamine contamination and toxicity. Weiss suggests that, “Probably acute renal failure resulting from cyanuric acid crystal formation in the kidneys of babies that ingested the melamine contaminated formula was responsible for the infant deaths, not kidney stone formation.”

Weiss is a kidney doctor for adults, but emphasises that she has never seen a case of melamine related kidney or bladder stones. However, there have been animal studies carried out since the 1980s that do demonstrate that the ingestion of melamine by mice can cause bladder stones, known technically as urolitiasis. These are apparently associated with ulcerations in the bladder. Weiss adds that the animal food tainted with melamine that killed so many pets in the US contained products in the feed from China.

As I’ve mentioned here before, melamine is an organic compound used in the manufacture of plastics and fertilizers. It releases cyanide when burned and has been associated with cyanide poisoning in industrial accidents. Melamine monomer, as opposed to the plastic used to make kitchen utensils and table coverings, itself also has irritant properties. It has been added to various food products to illicitly and fraudulently boost the measured protein content without the expense of actually improving the food’s nutritional value.

According to The Register, Chinese company, Xuzhou Anying, was advertising “dust of melamine” as something it called “ESB protein powder” on the global market trading website, Alibaba. “The latest product, ESB protein powder, which is researched and developed by Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., Ltd… Contains protein 160 – 300 percent, which solves the problem for shortage of protein resource,” it boasted. A horrifying thought, makes you wonder what is actually in those nasty protein powder drinks bodybuilders use.

“Melamine ingestion results in the production of cyanuric acid in the kidneys,” adds Weiss, “which results in intratubular crystal formation and acute renal failure.” This, she explains occurred in cats who were fed melamine in combination with cyanuric acid experimentally after the pet food issues to demonstrate what may have been happening during that incident.

According to Economics And Finance (Cai Jing) magazine, as reported in the Epoch Times, it is common practice to add melamine to livestock feed along with sodium nitrite, urea, ammonia, silica, potassium nitrate, sodium nitrite, glacial acetic acid, activated carbon materials, urea, ammonia, potassium nitrate, to improve its nutritional profile and other properties of the feed. The use of melamine in this context contravenes international regulations where they exist.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) points out that, “Regulation regarding its use in animal feed do not always exist as it is only recent events which indicated the need to regulate for this substance. However, some countries have established regulations and do not permit the use of melamine in animal feed.” Indeed, the FAO specifically states: “Melamine is not permitted in food or feed stuffs.”

Nevertheless, the FAO says, melamine is often used in agricultural fertilisers. But, has also warned that the commonly used pesticide cyromazine can break down to form melamine (PDF document). This might also explain why melamine has been found in lettuce, water cress, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes and other agricultural products in China. Contamination levels are very low at 17 milligrams of melamine per kilogram of mushrooms, for instance. They are notably low compared to the levels of melamine found in contaminated infant formula milk, which were as high as 2560 milligrams per kilogram of ready-to-eat product. The levels of cyanuric acid in these products is unknown.

Sciencebase regular “Offy” pointed me to the North Korean publication The Daily NK, which asks whether there were melamine deaths in 2005. “According to merchants trading between China and North Korea, the Chinese Melamine-tainted milk affair started in Pyongyang in the summer of 2005. At the time, infants who ate imported Chinese powdered milk fell unconscious and, in more serious cases, died.” At the time, the North Korean authorities tested imported Chinese milk and banned it on the basis of their findings.

Because of the pet food problem, pet owners like Offy, have been following this stayed on this for well over a year. “Politics has trumped health in favour of industry for a very long time in the US…it’s not just a problem in China,” she says. Cai Jing blames a lack of supervision for the melamine crisis and suggests an approach that will allow China’s fledgling market economy to continue to grow but at the same time minimising the chances of a similar scandal occurring again. It says that the melamine milk crisis has taught China that government oversight to spot corruption is essential, but it also suggests that the government not be allowed to simply meddle with the market. This would, Cai Jing says, be the only way to ensure a safe food industry.

More melamine news

• Why is melamine in baby formula, your food — and your pets’ meals?
• Major Chinese supermarket chain in Canada pulls yogurt drinks from shelves
• T&T; Supermarkets pulls yogurt drinks from shelves
• China: 12 more arrests in tainted milk case

This year the Nobel committee has awarded the Prize for Physiology or Medicine to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma viruses (HPV) causing cervical cancer and to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The announcement was made via the Nobel organisation’s Twitter page and on their site.

zur Hausen (born 1936) works at the German Cancer Research Centre Heidelberg. Barré-Sinoussi (born 1947) is at the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, Virology Department, Institut Pasteur Paris, France and Montagnier (born 1932) is at the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention also in Paris. The full press release for the announcement of the Medicine Prize is here. Where’s Robert Gallo in all this one wonders?

You can get up to the minute alerts on the chemistry, physics, and other Nobels announced later this week via the Nobel site and their new alerting systems with SMS, RSS, Twitter and more (thanks to new publicity guy and friend of Sciencebase Simon Frantz and his colleagues).

You can find the iGoogle gadget for the Prizes here. There’s a news widget here and the Nobel RSS is here.

Physics is announced October 7 (dark energy/dark matter perhaps?), Chemistry (another aspect of biology, no doubt) October 8, Literature on Thursday, we give Peace a chance on Friday, finally the Economics Prize on Monday 13th (hopefully it won’t go to a merchant banker, given the state of the global economy at the moment). You can get a list of past winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine here and the Nobel announcement here.

Before you check out the following items, please click here first to grab the Sciencebase newsfeed. I’ll be updating the melamine news over the next few days, and the RSS newsfeed system allows you to keep up to date with the Sciencebase site without having to check back by adding our headlines to your Google account, My Yahoo, Bloglines or your active bookmarks in your browser.

As the melamine in milk products from China problem continues to grow apace, Sciencebase presents a succinct list of melamine contaminated food list culled from the most recent news results on the subject. This is by no means an exhaustive list nor is it a condemnation of any particular products, it’s here merely to raise awareness of what is happening with regard to the melamine in milk scandal.

• Powdered baby milk.
• HK finds melamine in Chinese-made cheesecake.
• Cookies With Melamine Found in Netherlands.
• Mr Brown coffee products.
• Manufacturing giant Unilever recalls melamine tainted tea. CNN is also reporting that the Hong Kong authorities Sunday (October 5) announced that two recalled candy products made by British confectioner Cadbury had high levels of melamine.
• Melamine Detected in Two More Ritz Snacks.
• More Chinese-made sweets recalled in Japan.
• White Rabbit brand Chinese candy contaminated: Asian health officials.
• Lipton, Glico and Ritz the latest businesses to be affected by milk powder scandal.
• Hong Kong finds traces of melamine in Cadbury products.
• Recalled Melamine Milk Products include Asian versions of Bairong grape cream crackers, Dove chocolate, Dreyers cake mix, Dutch Lady candy, First Choice crackers, Kraft Oreo wafer sticks, M&Ms, Magnum ice cream, Mentos bottle yoghurt, Snickers funsize, Yili hi-cal milk, Youcan sesame snacks and others. Testing of some of those has already proven negative.
• Melamine Found in More China-Made Products, including Heinz DHA+AA baby cereal.
• 305 Chinese dairy-based products temporarily banned in Korea.
• US bloggers have gone so far as to uncover dozens of products recalled in China that were still on the shelves of their local supermarkets.
• 31 new milk powder brands found tainted.

Just for the record, this is not, as was suggested on a couple of blogs linking here, a definitive, complete list. I will update it as and when new information comes to light. Check out the previous posts for more information in the background to this news story and for further discussion on the issues surrounding the melamine in milk products scandal: Melamine Scandal Widens and (2008-09-29) Milky Melamine.

A brief summary and update to the Sciencebase original posts on Melamine in Milk and Melamine Scandal Widens.

Dairy farmers have been feeling the squeeze for years, particularly in parts of the world where technological advancement has been slow in coming and so their profit margins on their milk output have not been lifted by improved efficiency. In order to boost profits milk has been diluted. However, this brings with it the problem of falling quality – dilute with water and measurable concentrations of milk proteins, fats, and sugars fall. Dilution by up to 30% has not been uncommon, which is where melamine (as I’ve mentioned) comes in. Melamine is a small organic molecule with a high nitrogen content that can easily fool the quality control equipment into thinking that nitrogen (from protein) is present at normal levels and so the milk is passed as good.
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Unfortunately, it is possible that melamine accumulates in the body and causes toxicity problems – basically damaging the kidneys and forming stones (solid deposits within the kidneys or bladder). Infants fed regularly with milk containing melamine will be particularly susceptible to these effects. As we have seen tens of thousands have been affected and several have died in China. Why this problem is not more widespread, given the rather large number of infants potentially having been drinking contaminated formula-milk for months is unclear.

Hsieh Teh-sheng, director of the Taiwan Urological Association and chief of Cathay General Hospital’s Department of Urology told the Taipei Times, that while there is no direct toxicity information on melamine’s health effects on people, the level of melamine found in the milk products is “not particularly high”. He says that kidney stones or other effects blamed on the melamine “could just as easily be caused by other harmful chemicals,” which is a point I discussed in the original post.

However, cyanuric acid is often present in melamine samples and the two can react together to form crystals, which can form stones. The current scandal could, whatever the final outcome, provide researchers with useful data on the effects of chronic exposure to melamine and its toxicity to the kidneys and bladder.

Sources in China have now said that Sanlu, which is at the heart of the controversy, was aware that its products were contaminated with melamine as long ago as December 2007. Fonterra, the New Zealand dairy company and 43% stakeholder in Sanlu claims to have approached the Chinese authorities as soon as it heard about the problem but was held back from going public because of the imminent Beijing Olympic Games. One can imagine there were additional pressures that prevented Fonterra from pushing for a solution. But, it cannot blame Chinese regulations for it failing to warn consumers as soon as it knew about the contamination.

Products across the globe containing milk imported from China seem to have been affected and authorities from Australasia and Asia to Europe and the US are withdrawing formula milk, coffee and tea drinks, candies, soup, cheese powder, biscuits, ready-made desserts, and chocolate. however, there are calls from some commentators that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be more forthright on its recommendations for consumers concerned with the melamine in milk scandal.