Health - NZ diary finds melamine in export product

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) _ A New Zealand dairy company on Monday suspended exports of a product used mainly in baby milk formula after tests found it was contaminated with low levels of the industrial chemical melamine. The Tatua Cooperative Dairy Co.

stopped exports of the dairy protein lactoferrin after tests showed it contained four parts per million of melamine, Tatua chief executive Paul McGilvary said. Infant milk products in China that have been blamed for killing at least four children and leaving tens of thousands of others sickened had melamine levels of about 2,500 parts per million, he said.

Tatua said a Chinese customer told its agent two weeks ago that melamine had been detected. Further tests in both China and New Zealand on Sept.

22 and 23 confirmed the low-level contamination, McGilvary said. There were no health concerns over the product but the company was being cautious because of the melamine calamity in China, he said.

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority released a statement last Wednesday saying that low levels of melamine from a range of sources are "not unexpected in the food cycle" and could come from plastic involved in processing or packaging, or as an unintended outcome of the manufacturing process. "At these low levels, it does not present any health risk for consumers," the safety authority said.

"There is no risk either for New Zealand or international consumers of products that contain this ingredient at these low levels." On Monday, the authority said foods containing up to five parts per million of melamine do not pose a risk to human health, but it pledged to investigate any product containing more than 2.5 parts per million of the chemical.

McGilvary said the company had decided to suspend exports even though some customers were happy to continue taking its lactoferrin. Others customers had put purchases of the Tatua product on hold, he said.

Investigators are looking into whether the melamine in the Tatua product was introduced into the raw milk by farmers using insecticides, or by feeding dairy cows cheap imported feed such as palm kernels contaminated with the insecticide cyromazine which can be converted into melamine via animal digestion. The investigation may have serious implications for New Zealand dairy exporters, even though the country's two other manufacturers of lactoferrin, Fonterra and Westland, have said their products were not contaminated.

In addition to baby formula, lactoferrin is used in adult nutritional powders and drinks and in yogurt. Fonterra owns 45 percent of China's Sanlu Group, the first of 22 Chinese dairy companies whose products were found to contain high levels of melamine.

Tatua's board is to meet Tuesday and is expected to discuss the melamine issue.