Melamine in pesticides, human food chain - experts

Reuters ^ | 09/23/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

Melamine in pesticides, human food chain - experts

HONG KONG, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Melamine, a chemical that has tainted milk formula and made thousands of Chinese children ill, is used as an agricultural pesticide in China and may have been part of our food chain for a long time, experts said on Tuesday.

Chan King-ming, associate professor of biochemistry at the Chinese University, said cyromazine, a derivative of melamine, was very commonly used in China as a pesticide.

"It is absorbed into plants as melamine ... of course it is already in our food chain and animal feed," Chan said.

"So it is not just in milk products, but also in farm products and animal feed, fish diet," he said in an interview.

An Internet search for Chinese suppliers of cyromazine pesticides yielded many entries.

But experts were uncertain as to what this means for human health, or for people who may have been exposed to the chemical over the long term, albeit in very small amounts each time.

[TigerLikesRooster]

This is getting bigger and bigger. Of course, China may resolve this problem by threatening to do something about their T-bill holdings, instead of fixing melamine contamination.

They don't seem to care as long as they have other leverages.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

It’s amazing how many canned fruit products come from China.

[cripplecreek]

We know melamine made it into hog and chicken feed here in the states last time around. Fortunately by the time it got to us it was pretty dilluted.

[UB355]

My wife had bought 4 small cans of mushrooms that came fron China. Into the garbacge can they went

[brownsfan]

I’m confused. This stuff is poison but the Chinese are using it all over. Does melamine have some property that gives the Chinese economic incentive to introduce it into food supplies?

Or is there malicious intent here?

[reagan_fanatic]

I can stomach durable goods coming from China (to a point) but I think it’s a grevious error to import foodstuffs from there. It’s no great secret that the Chinese couldn’t care less about air and ground pollutants.

Whatever’s in the ground there is in the food we buy from them, and that ought to alarm each and every American.

[cripplecreek]

Does melamine have some property that gives the Chinese economic incentive to introduce it into food supplies?

It causes food to appear to have a higher protein content making the value higher.

[brownsfan]

“It causes food to appear to have a higher protein content making the value higher.”

Thanks. That clears a lot up for me.

It looks to me like the Chinese have taken to capitalism quite well. It seems unrestrained capitalism can yeild poor results, (can you say “bail out”?)

[PeterPrinciple]

I don't care much for wikipedia but here is some basic info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine

I can see melamine added to feed and protein. It is cheap, and has Nitrogen. Protein content is measured by the amount of N in most cases so it is a cheap way to increase the value of your product such as feed and milk.

[VictoryGal]

If you must buy packaged food, read the country of origin on the package.

If the package does not say, let it be on the shelf.

You should be buying fresh stuff anyway, the more local the better. Better for you, better for the U.S.

[blam]

"It’s amazing how many canned fruit products come from China."

Some of the things we get from China suprize me, for example:

80% of the garlic consumed in the US comes from China.

I remember when I lived in California in the 60-70's the Garlic Festival was held in Gilroy, California - Garlic Capital Of The World

[TigerLikesRooster]

Many Chinese are probably suffering from the effect of long-term slow contamination. In the recent case on powered milk for babies, the symptom is rather acute, and the source was readily recognizable. However, for extensive contamination through pesticides like this, symptom would not be apparent until lengthy exposure time, and even so, it may not be easy to pinpoint where it came from.

This kind of problem requires judicious detective work by dedicated lab staffs, and I doubt that China would do that. I heard that, a several years ago, quality test requirement for many processed food products was waived as long as the products are produced by large well-known manufacturers. The baby milk manufacturer, Sanlu, was one of them. It was not even on the list to be checked for several years.

[too much time]

Phyllis Schlafly wrote a great article on this, today. Phyllis Schlafly - 'China Poisons Its Infant Formula'

[gieriscm]

You should be growing as much as you can, and buying fresh what you can’t.

[cripplecreek]

It looks to me like the Chinese have taken to capitalism quite well. It seems unrestrained capitalism can yeild poor results, (can you say “bail out”?)

I blame China for poisoning themselves but I don't blame them for poisoning us. That blame goes to the American or global corporations that repeatedly import crap from China knowing that the danger exists.

[too much time]

According to Schlafly, the melamine inflates the protein readings in tests done on the food.

[PGalt]

OUTSTANDING post! Thanks.

Ping.

[DB]

I expect the Chinese people to revolt and demand that it be cleaned up from the inside of the country.

It is way too late to hide.

And...

It is just one of many such short cuts (cheating) that cause serious damage to people both in and out of the country. I expect these things to keep popping up for some time to come because these issues are so wide spread...

[TigerLikesRooster]

Yes. They used cheaper chemical substitute to fool the test. In the case of blood thinner Heparin, they also used a cheaper substitute, rather sophisticated fake which require expert knowledge on chemistry, and it was deadly. Many people were killed in U.S. due to fake Heparin.