Health Care Article

Melamine is a chemical used to produce plastic products. However, when melamine was mixed with watered-down milk it make it appears richer in protein than it actually is.

South Korean authorities have found trace amounts of melamine in milk products imported from New Zealand that were used in baby formula and banned their import, its food safety agency said on Thursday.The Korea Food and Drug Administration said in a statement that the product, lactoferrin, was produced by Tatua Cooperative Diary Company of New Zealand. South Korea was banning all other products made by the company pending further tests, it said.

No trace of the chemical has been found in 19 baby formula products tested, presumably because the additive makes up less than 0.1% of the final product, the agency said.

No comment was immediately available from Tauta, which on Monday had suspended exports of lactoferrin because of the melamine find. The company was also checking where its product had been exported to and trying to trace the source of the melamine contamination.

“There’s quite a lot of sensitivity around melamine even at low levels,” chief executive Paul McGilvary told the NZ Press Association at the time.

He said the New Zealand Food Safety Authority had found fewer than four parts per million of melamine in the Tatua product, and found there was no contamination of the company’s milk supply.

South Korea has banned the imports of Chinese milk powder and rice cookies produced in China. It has also recalled tainted products from store shelves.

A growing list of Chinese milk and milk-related products have been taken off shelves around the world in recent weeks after they have been found to be contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, sickening tens of thousands and killing four children.

Melamine is an organic compound, a base with chemical formula C3H6N6. It is has a molecular mass of just over 126, forms a white, crystalline powder, and is only slightly soluble in water.

It is used as a fi re retardant additive in polymer resins because its high nitrogen content is released as flame-stifling nitrogen gas when the compound is burned or charred. Indeed, it is this high nitrogen level - 66% nitrogen by mass - in melamine that gives it the analytical characteristics of protein molecules.

Melamine can also be described as a trimer of cyanamide, three cyanamide units joined in a ring.
It is a rather harmful compound. Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chronic exposure may cause cancer or reproductive damage.

Previously, melamine was found in exported pet food last year and blamed for killing thousands of cats and dogs in the US. Bloomberg also reports that analysis of samples of ice cream produced by Yili
have also revealed the presence of melamine.

BEIJING: China said on Wednesday a third infant had died from drinking milk contaminated with toxic melamine and 6,244 infants were sick as four officials were sacked amid a widening scandal.The number of infants diagnosed with “acute kidney failure” had risen to 158, Health Minister Chen Zhu told a news conference carried live on state television.

Four city officials and a company boss have been sacked in the health scare which has seen thousands of parents in southern China flood into Hong Kong to buy foreign-made milk powder.

China has been beset by scandals about toxic and unsafe food and other products in recent years. In 2004, at least 13 babies died after drinking fake milk powder that had no nutritional value.

Facing alarm at the latest food safety scandal, the government sacked four officials in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province in north China and base of the Sanlu Group, the dairy company first linked to the toxic milk.

The sackings included the vice mayor in charge of agriculture, Zhang Fawang, and the director of the city’s food and drug watchdog, Zhang Yi, as well as chief officials for animal husbandry and quality inspection. (more…)

BEIJING (Sept 16, 2008): The number of Chinese infants found threatened by toxic milk powder is likely to rise as the search for victims spreads, state media reported yesterday, as the government faced growing public anger over the safety crisis.More than 1,200 children have been diagnosed with kidney illness after drinking adulterated milk powder produced by the Sanlu Group.

Two infants have died and more than 50 are in a serious condition from kidney stones caused by a banned chemical, melamine, added to raw milk before processing in an apparent bid to fool inspectors.

“Their number could rise as the search for more infants fed Sanlu milk food spreads across the country’s rural areas,” the China Daily reported. “…The number could rise sharply in coming days as more parents take their children for medical check-ups,” it added, citing Health Minister Chen Zhu.

Melamine is rich in nitrogen, an element often used to measure protein, and so can be used to disguise diluted milk.

China is the world’s second biggest market for baby milk powder, and Sanlu has been the top-selling company in the sector for 15 years, with 18.3% of sales in 2007.

Sanlu dominates in poorer rural areas, where farmer and migrant workers often find milk powder is easier than breast-feeding, and sometimes believe it is also healthier.

The central government has called the poisonings a “Level 1″ food safety incident and formed an emergency team to grapple with the fall-out, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But public anger has grown over claims the company and officials failed to act sooner.
Sanlu, 43% owned by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra, last week halted production after investigators announced they had found the problem.

Local Chinese officials acted last week only after the New Zealand government contacted Beijing, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday. But according to Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier, Sanlu started its own recall from suppliers from Aug 2.

But last year, Sanlu was lauded by a Chinese state television programme, “Weekly Consumer Report”, as a model of good quality.

In past days, Chinese internet sites have filled with bitter criticisms claiming the broadcaster was more interested in boosting companies than protecting consumers.

“Weekly Consumer Report changes from an attacker of fake and sub-standard products into their protector,” said one. - Reuters

Women have puzzled over it for years-why the heck do men do the things they do? Why do they profess their love for you one minute, then ignore you the next (say, when an Attila the Hun special turns up on TV)? Why can they not remember our birthdays? Let science explain some of these conundrums-and help you rev up your relationships!

Be patient with his memory
The hippocampus, where initial memories are formed, occupies a smaller percent of the male brain than the female brain. If on your first date he can’t remember where you work, even though you told him all about it when you met, just remember that size matters … hippocampus size, that is. Don’t take it personally. (Oh, and don’t be surprised when, months down the line, he has no clue you’ve just changed your hair.) (more…)

Washington: Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to 26% greater risk of death in men and women, according to a study published on Monday that appears to confi rm the importance of this essential nutrient.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, Maryland, studied 13,000 initially healthy men and women from 1994 to 2000, comparing the mortality rate between those with low and normal levels of vitamin D in the blood. They found that of the 1,800 people who died by Dec 31, 2000 - 700 from cardiovascular diseases - 400 were deficient in vitamin D, which translated to a 26% increased risk of death.

The number of heart disease related deaths was insufficient to establish a cause-and-effect link to
vitamin D defi ciency, the researchers said in the study published in the the Archives of Internal Medicine. However, the study “does highlight a trend, with other studies linking shortages of vitamin D to increased rates of breast cancer and depression in the elderly.” Doctors recommend a 10-15-minute daily exposure to the sun for adequate levels of vitamin D, which is also found in fatty fishes. - AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: Former teacher Abdollah Amat was wheeled into the Trauma and Emergency Unit
of a public medical centre here in the wee hours of the morning a fortnight ago after complaining of
numbness in his hands and feet.

The 62-year-old city dweller also had tingling sensation on his skin along with fatigue, nausea and chest discomfort. A blood test revealed that his blood potassium level was 7.2 mmol/l. The permissible level for a person is 3.5-5.5 mmol/l. “The doctors who attended to me said I could have suffered
a heart seizure any time,” said Abdollah, who is also a kidney failure patient.

He was diagnosed as having hyperkalemia, a condition where the blood potassium level surpasses
the maximum tolerable point. “The doctors advised me to watch my diet, especially on consuming
less ‘ulam’, my favourite food,” he said. A senior medical science officer at the University Malaya
Medical Centre, Kan Chok On, said potassium is a mineral found naturally in food. It plays a crucial
role in normal muscle and nerve activity, particularly the heart.

“It is a mineral necessary for normal muscle and heart function. However, for some people, high
levels of potassium is dangerous,” said Kan, who works at the centre’s nephrology unit. “The kidneys
remove excess potassium. People with kidney failure have reduced ability to remove excess potassium, causing accumulation of potassium in the blood.” Kan, who has more than two decades of experience dealing with haemodialysis patients, said excessive potassium is flushed out from the body system via the kidneys.

“Any damage to the kidneys, or when these organs are not working properly, may cause an increase
in the potassium level, leading to hyperkalemia,” he said. “Ulam, like petai, and the various green pucuk like pucuk paku, pucuk ubi, daun selom, ulam raja and other green leafy vegetables contain high levels of potassium.

“So do fruits like banana, orange, kiwi, papaya, durian and honeydew as well as coconut and prune juices. You have to exercise caution and limit your consumption of vegetables like bayam (spinach), kangkung (water spinach) and sawi (Chinese mustard).”