By David Barboza
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
SHANGHAI: Chinese regulators said Friday that they were widening their investigation into contaminated food amid growing signs that an industrial chemical called melamine has leached into the nation's animal feed supplies, posing health risks to consumers.
The announcement came after food safety tests this week found that eggs produced in three provinces in China were contaminated with melamine, which is blamed for causing kidney stones and renal failure in infants. The tests have led to recalls of eggs and consumer warnings.
The reports are another serious blow to China's agriculture industry, which is already struggling to cope with its worst food safety scandal in decades after melamine-tainted milk supplies sickened more than 50,000 children, caused at least four deaths and led to global recalls of goods produced with Chinese dairy products this autumn.
Companies all over the world that import from China are now beginning to test for melamine. If animal feed supplies are tainted, an even wider array of foods could come under scrutiny for contamination, everything from pork and chicken supplies to bread, cookies, eggs, cakes and seafood.
While China is not a major exporter of dairy products, it has one of the world's fastest-growing dairy industries and it is also one of the world's largest exporters of food and food ingredients, including meats, seafood, beverages and vitamins.
Government investigators have attributed the dairy scandal to a group of rogue milk and melamine dealers whom they accuse of intentionally adding melamine, which is commonly used to produce plastic and fertilizer, to milk supplies as cheap filler in order to save money.
High-ranking government officials, including the head of the nation's quality watchdog, have been fired in the wake of the recalls and Beijing has acknowledged that "lax regulation" contributed to the scandal.
But interviews Friday, and during the past year, with several chemical dealers who sell melamine suggest that melamine scrap, the substantially cheaper waste left after producing melamine, has been added to animal and fish feed in China for years.
"I heard some melamine dealers still sell to animal feed producers," said Qin Huaizhen, manager of Gaocheng Kaishun Chemical in the city of Shijiazhuang, though he insisted he has never sold melamine to animal feed producers. "In Shandong Province many animal feed manufacturers buy melamine scrap."
Two other melamine dealers in east and south China said that only after the recent dairy scandal did government regulators crack down on the sale of melamine to animal feed producers, even though it was banned as an animal feed additive in July 2007..
Concerned that the food safety crisis could escalate, Shanghai and other cities are now testing a wide variety of food products for melamine, including fish and livestock feed.
Hong Kong food safety officials were the first to announce that eggs imported from China were also contaminated with high levels of melamine.
Now, state-run newspapers are publishing editorials in China calling for a full investigation into the use of melamine in food and feed.
Food safety experts, though, are perplexed as to how melamine was allowed to seep into China's food supplies after melamine-tainted animal feed exports from China were blamed last year for sickening dogs and cats in the United States, touching off an international trade and food safety disputes.
The pet food case led to a massive recall around the world and sparked a lengthy food safety crackdown in China, as regulators closed thousands of illegal or substandard food factories and slaughterhouses.
Still, the Chinese government never made it clear last year or even this year how extensively it had tested its own food supply for melamine, even though some melamine dealers acknowledged last year that it was commonly sold into the food and feed market. Regulators in Beijing largely blamed the pet food case on a pair of small exporters, who regulators said shipped feed contaminated with melamine in order to save money.
Several farmers and melamine scrap dealers said in interviews last year that melamine had been used for years in animal feed, particularly fish feed, and many producers believed melamine scrap was not toxic and would not be harmful to humans.
Melamine dealers say the government crackdown on the sale to feed producers only occurred this year, after the Sanlu Group dairy company announced that its infant milk formula was tainted with melamine. That announcement in September triggered a nationwide recall and government announcements that other major dairy brands were also selling melamine-contaminated milk.
"Before the Sanlu scandal, we were not banned from selling melamine to anyone. I had heard melamine dealers sell melamine to animal feed companies and food companies; it was common before the Sanlu scandal," Niu Qinglin, manager of Hebei Jinglong Fengli Chemical, said in a telephone interview Friday.
Niu, however, said he never sold melamine or melamine scrap to food or feed producers. And he noted that regulators had moved in on the trade. "Now, the government regulates that melamine cannot be sold to any animal feed manufacturers or food processing companies," he said.
Chen Yang contributed research in Shanghai.