China Daily reported over the weekend that more melamine-tainted milk powder was discovered in a dairy plant in Qinghai province. Recalling memories of the contaminated products that killed six children and sickened 300,000 in 2008, 64 tons of dairy products were seized from the plant in June due to melamine levels 500 times above the maximum allowed.
Melamine is used in dairy plants to water down milk and increase the protein content during quality testing. Despite the recall of tainted products following the outbreak of illness in 2008, the batch of contaminated milk powder was never fully destroyed and in some cases was purchased in order to be processed and resold. Following the recent resurfacing of the tainted milk, efforts to ferret out the last of the contaminated products have redoubled.
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