New milk rules: zero tolerance for melamine
By Wang Xiang |
April 24, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA has released 66 new state standards for the country's milk industry, scrapping a rule that had allowed limited amounts of melamine, a poisonous chemical, in dairy products.
The change overturned a rule set two years ago, in the midst of the widening national melamine-tainted milk scandal, that allowed dairy products with melamine level lower than 2.5mg/kg onto the market. The limit for baby formula had been 1mg/kg, according to the ministry and other food safety authorities.
Yesterday's move is seen as zero-tolerance for the chemical that sickened more than 300,000 kids with kidney stones and killed at least six in 2008.
Melamine, a nitrogen-based compound, was added to milk products in 2008 so that high nitrogen levels could be shown in tests. Nitrogen is an index to measure the protein content in food, and milk with melamine could pass the test.
The previous limits on melamine were meant to be only temporary emergency measure in the melamine scandal, according to dairy official Wang Dingmian, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
Wang said allowing melamine in dairy products had an adverse effect on China's milk exports when almost no other country permitted the substance.
Ministry of Health said screenings for melamine would still be strict.
The existence of the earlier safety standard for melamine took some Internet users by surprise. They reacted with anger, saying they had expected an outright ban on the toxic chemical in food after the massive milk safety scandal and felt they'd been fooled for the last two years.
According to the World Health Organization, certain amounts of melamine are inevitable because the chemical is widely used in packaging and other links of the food industry.
The chemical was found capable of infiltrating the human food chain by means other than milk. Hong Kong found melamine-tainted eggs in 2008 and said it was because chickens ate melamine-tainted feed.
The change overturned a rule set two years ago, in the midst of the widening national melamine-tainted milk scandal, that allowed dairy products with melamine level lower than 2.5mg/kg onto the market. The limit for baby formula had been 1mg/kg, according to the ministry and other food safety authorities.
Yesterday's move is seen as zero-tolerance for the chemical that sickened more than 300,000 kids with kidney stones and killed at least six in 2008.
Melamine, a nitrogen-based compound, was added to milk products in 2008 so that high nitrogen levels could be shown in tests. Nitrogen is an index to measure the protein content in food, and milk with melamine could pass the test.
The previous limits on melamine were meant to be only temporary emergency measure in the melamine scandal, according to dairy official Wang Dingmian, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
Wang said allowing melamine in dairy products had an adverse effect on China's milk exports when almost no other country permitted the substance.
Ministry of Health said screenings for melamine would still be strict.
The existence of the earlier safety standard for melamine took some Internet users by surprise. They reacted with anger, saying they had expected an outright ban on the toxic chemical in food after the massive milk safety scandal and felt they'd been fooled for the last two years.
According to the World Health Organization, certain amounts of melamine are inevitable because the chemical is widely used in packaging and other links of the food industry.
The chemical was found capable of infiltrating the human food chain by means other than milk. Hong Kong found melamine-tainted eggs in 2008 and said it was because chickens ate melamine-tainted feed.
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