Chinese Government Seizes 76 Tons Of Dairy Products Contaminated With Toxic Melamine

The Chinese government, embarrassed by food-safety violations in the 2007 and 2008 melamine cases and determined to prevent them in the future, has implemented comprehensive changes in food inspection procedures that includes new rules and a streamlined food regulation bureaucracy. The new program seems to be working. Food inspectors in Qinghai Province in Western China recently impounded 76 tons of milk powder and other raw dairy products and finished goods tainted with as much as 559 times the legal levels of the toxic industrial chemical melamine. The confiscated products had somehow avoided a national recall of dairy foods after the 2008 debacle. Melamine is added to food products because it mimics protein in food quality tests, making foods then seem more nutritious.