Melamine Milk Panic

The word Melamine for the past few days has strike deep fear and concern among parents, especially nursing mothers from Asian countries who were sleepless on whether the milk powder that they gave to their babies are safe for consumption. The scandal of milk powder tainted with Melamine started in China and gradually turn into a mild crisis as China neighboring countries started to take precautionary measures to test the milk powder in their market. Those tests are eventually extended to dairy products, ice cream, chocolates types and even coffee.

No panic situation yet but online queries on Melamine has not subsided and in fact, mothers are busy searching for reliable information on which milk and dairy products are free of Melamine. Queries on Melamine from Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Australia and Vietnam has been on the rise.

Even chocolate products and coffee products have been dubious as their ingredients are from milk and dairy products. Everyone are worry if those ingredients are sourced or imported from China.

The Health Ministry or equivalent agencies in Asian countries have been working in overdrive to perform lab tests and to certify which products are free of Melamine contents. But with hundred of products to check, often then not, those Health Ministry just rely on the manufacturer guaranteed statement or test report from independent laboratories.

With Melamine becoming an emerging keywords trend in Asian countries, bloggers from this region are having a field day in writing melamine snippets from an easy to do post like compiling a list of melamine free products, list of melamine suspected products to bigger scandal in China whereby the affected milk manufacturers are thought to be paying China search engine portal to black-out the search results on melamine.

Get updated on suspected products and products recall due to melamine contamination:

* U.S. Food and Drug Administration (US FDA)
* Health Ministry Malaysia
* Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD Philippines)
* AgriFood & Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore

Online fallout of melamine

The accusation of leading search engine Baidu, said to have accepted three million Renminbi (300,000 euro) to filter its search results, was the first. But also Sina.com and Sohu.com came under fire.

From the Southern Metropolis Daily:

The effect of the "Document showing Sanlu paid Baidu 3 million yuan" continues to reverberate. In that document provided by a netizen, Sanlu's public relations company recommended Sanlu paying 3 million yuan to get Baidu to filter out all negative news about the kidney stones. It also claimed that Yili and Mengniu paid 5 million yuan to buy off Baidu. The document said that Sanlu has established stronger cooperation with Sina.com and Sohu.com. "Except for the reports coming from the authoritative national organizations, those two websites will not publish any negative news about the Sanlu Group for the rest of the year."

Melamine causing financial crisis:

The financial impact caused by the melamine scandal not only affect Sanlu and Yili, it also affect any businesses that deal with milk and diary products even if those companies are outside China. This is because the public are worry if the raw material or ingredients are imported from China or not. Stock prices drop, product sales drop, consumer trust declining, products demand declining. Bad products create bad companies. Bad companies, bad business.

Melamine goes beyond milk and diary product contamination:

Public fear are further fueled in some countries when rumor mongers started to mill the news stating that even plastic wares are contaminated with melamine and eating from those plastic wares might be hazardous to health. Apparently with this rumor mills, PLASTICOS ECOLÓGICOS DEL PERU, a company from Peru dealing in plastic wares is getting more famous because its website was name www.melamineperu.com

China's milk manufacturer in the melamine scandal:

* Sanlu, China
* Yili, China
* Shandong Duqing Inc., China
* Mengniu Dairy
* Bright Dairy

Chemistry of melamine

The problem stems from unscrupulous practices in China where water is added to raw milk to increase its volume. As the milk is diluted, so is its protein content.

Explains N Hithaya Jeevan, director-general of the Department of Chemistry Malaysia, "The test for protein is based on nitrogen levels, and melamine is added because it is rich in nitrogen. Testing for nitrogen to determine protein content is the recommended, standard method for protein determination."

But is melamine really that dangerous and serious:

Melamine by itself is nontoxic in low doses, but when combined with cyanuric acid it can cause fatal kidney stones due to the formation of an insoluble melamine cyanurate. However, the toxic dose is on a par with common table salt with an LD50 of more than 3 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. That would be like consuming pure melamine of 150 grams if your body weight is 50 kilograms.