New melamine scare adds to China's safety woes

According to AP, three batches of milk products dating from early 2009 were taken off the shelves in about a dozen stores after health inspectors tested them and found melamine, a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics and fertilizer that can make food products appear to have a higher protein content. If consumed, the chemical can cause kidney stones or, in the worst case, kidney failure.

Beijing introduced new food safety regulations and stepped up inspections on the dairy industry after the 2008 scandal, which saw some 300,000 children sickened and at least six killed. Now, everybody is questioning where things went wrong.

A report in The Wall Street Journal suggests that the reemergence of melamine may involve the repackaging of milk products removed from markets in 2008 but not destroyed. This view is echoed in an AFP report, which says that it is likely that some tainted goods remained in supermarkets despite the the massive recall two years ago.

The products at the center of the new scandal were manufactured by food companies in Hebei, Liaoning and Shandong provinces and in Shanghai in March and April 2009, The New York Times says. The companies involved blamed the contamination on milk powder bought from suppliers, the BBC says. An article in China Economic Review says that some reports claim that local officials covered up the reappearance of tainted goods in order “to safeguard the good image of the dairy industry.”

Earlier this month, CRI reported of quality inspectors in Shanghai having covered up another tainted milk case for almost a year, allegedly because it was still under investigation. Responding to local news reports suggesting that the raw material of the tainted products was left over from products in 2008, Yan Fengmin, deputy director of the inspection division of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), said he was certain that all the tainted products had been destroyed under the supervision of local governments.

According to international media reports, these new safety scares seem to suggest that the Chinese government's crackdown on dangerous practices in the dairy industry has been a failure.