Usefully Useless

Go here to read about the story if you like. I’m not about to go into the event, but instead why it’s happened.

Why would anyone want to contaminate milk with melamine? What’s there to gain?

Usually milk is tested for concentration, to ensure it isn’t watered down or adulterated, and this is done by testing its protein content. Watered down milk, or milk powder cut with flour, will contain less protein as it contains less milk.

The standard test done is simply measuring nitrogen content, since in milk most of the nitrogen is in protein. Protein in milk is usually around 15% nitrogen by mass. However, melamine is 66% nitrogen by mass and so can be added in to watered down milk to make it appear to be undiluted.

Normally this would be almost undetectable, without specific reason to test for melamine. Melamine is about as toxic as normal table salt, you could drink melamine contaminated milk every day for your whole adult life and merely have a heightened risk of kidney stones, nobody would notice without specifically testing for it

It’s fraud, plainly and simply. By passing off the milk as undiluted and passing off animal feed as higher in protein than it is, the companies who buy the stuff to use it are being ripped off.

Melamine itself is harmless, but mix it with cyanuric acid (again totally harmless) and the two form melamine cyanurate, which is insoluble and forms crystals in the kidneys, kidney stones. An adult’s kidney is large enough to simply expel the crystals before they grow any larger, but a baby (or small animal) cannot.

If melamine contaminated milk finds its way into infant formula, then the problems start. A baby’s kidney will form melamine cyanurate itself, infants do not have the same kidney function or renal chemistry that adults (and older children) do, meaning melamine is much more harmful, rapidly forming kidney stones which can prove fatal in babies.

It’s not just milk formula, however. Other products tested and sold by protein content are also known to have been contaminated in the 2006-2008 timeframe, such as animal feed. This is harmless to humans, but did kill 1,500 raccoon dogs being bred for fur and can find its way into eggs produced from chickens fed with contaminated feed.

China already sentenced two people to death for their part in the 2008 scandal (which affected 300,000 children, hospitalised 50,000 of them and killed six) , it’s likely more will follow. China is very protective of its booming export trade and will deal very harshly with people or companies which threaten confidence in its exports.