CHINA'S FOOD safety woes refuse to go away as the problem of tainted produce spread from milk to eggs at the weekend, writes Clifford Coonan
The discovery of excessive levels of the industrial chemical melamine in Chinese eggs prompted Hong Kong authorities to expand testing to include meat products originating from mainland China.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao made a pledge at the weekend that his country's food exports would win the trust of people around the world, saying new legislation requiring greater government responsibility would make Chinese products meet the standards of importing countries.
Almost at the same time as he was speaking, however, Hong Kong testers said they had found 4.7 parts per million (ppm) of melamine in imported eggs produced by a division of Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group. The legal limit for melamine in foodstuffs in Hong Kong is 2.5ppm.
Hong Kong's secretary for food and health York Chow said the melamine may have come from feed given to the chickens that laid the eggs.
More than 3,600 children remain sick in China from contaminated milk, with three in serious condition, the ministry of health said last week. The deaths of four infants have been blamed on dairy products contaminated with melamine. Milk suppliers are accused of watering down milk and then adding the nitrogen-rich chemical to make the milk seem higher in protein when tested.