Nestlé Confident that its Chinese Dairy Products are Melamine Free

The government has said that nearly 53,000 children in China have become sick from milk powder contaminated by the industrial chemical. Most had "basically recovered" but 12,892 of them remained hospitalised, he added.

22/09/08 Nestlé has said in a statement that it is confident that none of its products in China is made from milk adulterated with melamine. This followed press reports in Hong Kong claiming that traces of melamine had been found in a Nestlé growing up milk.

The Hong Kong Government's Food and Environmental Health Department has just released a report declaring that Neslac Gold 1+, which was mentioned in the media reports, is safe and that no melamine was detected in the product. Neslac Gold 1+ was previously tested by government-approved independent laboratories such as the Hong Kong Standards and Testing Centre Ltd. (18-20 September) and the Food Industry Research and Development in Taiwan (16 September). Neither test detected melamine in the product.

Nestlé said that it has a very close relationship with its milk producers in China and advises them continuously on the quality of milk production. Nestlé also has the same stringent quality control system in place in its factories in China as in any other part of the world. Over 70 different tests are routinely conducted in the course of producing infant formula and other milk products. In fact, the Chinese authorities have issued official certificates for all tested Nestlé products stating that no melamine has been detected in any of them.

In general terms, melamine is found throughout the food chain across the world in minute traces which do not represent any health risk for consumers. There is a generally accepted tolerable daily intake of melamine in food in the EU (0.5mg/kg of body weight/day) and in the US (0.63mg/kg of body weight/day). The lowest level of melamine traces which can be measured by commonly-used testing equipment (2 ppm) is 20 times below these internationally-recognised safety limits. In other words, based on this 2 ppm value, a three year-old child would have to consume over 40 litres of milk every day to exceed these safety limits.

Meanwhile the toll of children who have fallen ill after the consumption of affected powder has spiraled. The government has said that nearly 53,000 children in China have become sick from milk powder contaminated by the industrial chemical. A Health Ministry spokesman said that a total of 52,857 children had been brought to hospitals after falling ill. Most had "basically recovered" but 12,892 of them remained hospitalised, he added.

One of the most serious health scandals to tarnish Chinese-made goods, the melamine scare has spread from milk powder to regular milk, yoghurt and ice cream from some of China's biggest dairy manufacturers. Melamine is used in industrial processes, mainly in the manufacturing of plastics. It is illegally added to heavily diluted milk products (powder and liquid) to boost the nitrogen content.