EU Food Agency Checks Food for Milk Products from China

The European Safety Authority (EFSA), Europe’s leading food safety agency is forming its scientific opinion this week as to whether or not processed items consisting of any milk products from China place a risk for human health .
It is crucial for public health to ensure that melamine is not in such milk products. It is not an easy process as multiple ingredients are imported and then put into complex products.
China’s chief food safety regulator resigned following this scandal, whereby milk powder was found to have been contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, usually utilised in manufacturing plastics.
It has been claimed that the cause of four deaths of babies in China is this toxic milk powder, known to cause kidney stones as well as other agonising complication. The Chinese milk products have been banned or recalled. Many thousands of Chinese children are ill in hospital due to drinking the contaminate milk formula.
The European Union is not an importer of milk or milk products from China. Nonetheless, there is an urgency to ensure that no such product enters EU markets that can pose a risk to health, for example, within biscuits..
There is some suspicion that melamine was used in the milk and milk products by the Chinese to provide an impression of high protein in the milk. People are currently being prosecuted in China for this.
Melamine is high in nitrogen and quite cheap. Should you add melamine to milk it makes the watered-down milk’s protein level seem higher. Quality standard tests work out protein levels by measuring nitrogen content.