SHANGHAI: Chen Changhua was enraged when he read melamine – the chemical he sells for a living – was found in baby formula.

When he realised his infant son might be drinking it, he nearly fainted.

Chen, 33, a sales manager in Chengdu for China’s largest melamine producer, said his initial thought was that it was absurd anyone would want to add to food the white powder used to make plastic, fertiliser and fire retardant foam.

“Could this have been done by a human being?” he remembered thinking. “It didn’t actually come into my mind immediately. But when I came to my senses I realised my baby was probably drinking this. I suddenly felt faint.”

As the scandal stretches into a second month, melamine contaminated milk has poisoned more than 53,000 children, killing four of them.

The chemical has been found in fresh milk, powders and yogurt from more than 20 dairy producers, including leading national brands – pushing concerns over the safety of made-in-China products to an all-time high.

Before China’s tainted milk crisis emerged a month ago, hardly anyone had heard of melamine. Now after a series of international recalls of products ranging from White Rabbit candies to saltine crackers, the word strikes fear into the hearts of shoppers everywhere.

So great is the concern over melamine that Malaysia, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand were reportedly testing fruit and vegetables this week to see if they were contaminated the white powder. No cases were reported found.

However, the chemical, which has existed for nearly 175 years, is in hundreds of everyday items. It is on the surface of our floors, it holds together the particle board in our furniture, is in the paint coating our household appliances and is even used to make tableware.

Products made with melamine resins do not release the chemical and do not pose health risks, according to producers.

“Melamine itself is not toxic or dangerous. It can be used in almost anything but not in food,” said Chen, a sales manager with M&A Chemicals Corp, the international trading arm of Sichuan Chemical Works. Neither company has been linked in any way to the milk scandal.

As the world’s factory floor, China is not only the world’s largest melamine consumer but also its largest exporter.

And this is not China’s first melamine scandal, last year the chemical was found in pet food containing Chinese ingredients that killed cats and dogs in the United States.

It is not legal to add melamine to food anywhere in the world, according to producers.

“Melamine is not for use in food and feed and there is no approval worldwide of any authority to do so,” Lena Aschauer, a spokeswoman for Linz, Austria-based Borealis Group, Europe’s largest melamine producer, said in an e-mail.

The white powder is cheap and rich in nitrogen. When added to watered down milk it can fool quality tests that gauge milk protein levels.

Chinese state press have reported that more than 40 people in central and northern China have been arrested for producing, selling or adding the chemical to milk to falsify tests.

China’s industry ministry last month ordered investigations into the nation’s dozens of melamine producers, checking their production capacity and sales records.

But Zhou Jun, a domestic sales manager with Sichuan Chemical Works, said tracing the source of the melamine could be impossible.

He said middle men could have obtained the chemical from small companies and sold it on to dairy farmers.

“We know our clients and what they use the chemical for quite well. None of them is in the food industry,” Zhou said.

Chen, the melamine salesman with the one-year-old, said whoever added the chemical to milk deserved to be executed.

He said the powdered milk he fed his baby turned out not to be on the black list, but remained disgusted at the entire scenario.

“Think about it,” he said, sighing. “What China is doing is destroying its own national brands.”—AFP