The melamine was in the eggs that arrived in Hong Kong, the biscuits in the Philippines, the foil-wrapped chocolate coins sold across Canada and cookies and candy here in California. The latest round of discoveries of Chinese-produced food tainted with a cheap, illegal and dangerous additive started with preemptive testing in Hong Kong and spread from there with additional tests in other countries.
The world’s hunger for ever-cheaper products has wrought a perpetual state of food-safety alert. Hong Kong is expanding its melamine tests to include meat, vegetables and processed foods. More countries, including this one, should be taking similarly aggressive protective steps, holding foods from China for testing before they are released to markets and restaurants.
The world is only starting to learn how ubiquitous melamine, used in the production of plastics, has become in Chinese agriculture. In the case of the melamine-laced infant formula and other dairy products that killed [...]
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http://www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsafety/news/fsnews.cfm?newsid=29587
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