The urinating problems and kidney stones of more than 65,000 Chinese children we had already among pets in the United States. Because early 2007, suddenly dogs and cats died in the U.S. and Canada from kidney failure. Their food was found contaminated with melamine. It was in wheat gluten and rice protein that the manufacturer had imported from China.

In animal nutrition and childhood milk there's clearly fraudulent practise. The price of milk and protein-containing plant material is largely determined by the protein. The nitrogen content of a food product is a good indication for this, because protein molecules have a fairly constant nitrogen content, while in other important food components (cellulose and starch, fat and water) almost no nitrogen atoms appear. The fraudulent blending of cheap nitrogen molecules can be lucrative.

The Chinese milk powders sometimes contain melamine concentrations that sometimes are dangerously high, but also often not. The question is if whether the melamine-cyanurate-combination explains the disease outbreak better. The waiting is for further analysis. If there will appear cyanurate in milkpowder, the risk-calculations - which so far showed little risk - from imported cookies and chocolate and a variety of other food products from China should also be re-done.

Melamine is an easily available raw material for plastics and fire-delaying foams. Best known are probably the melamine tabletops and the Mepal camping dinnersets, in which the melamine molecules to each
other (and other molecules such as formaldehyde) are linked to a plastic. It's an old plastic, in production already since the thirties of the last century.

With the melamine scandal of canned dog and cat food last year, the problem seemed solved. In May 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published an explanatory report. But reading between the lines,
occured a visible problem: melamine was not known to be very toxic. The dose should be very high to cause kidney problems. And the real cause then awakened. The FDA report referred to a press release in early
may, in which researchers pointed out that melamine combined with the related substance cyanurate is much more damaging. And from the autumn of 2007 there were more scientific articles published about this.

In the related substances ammeline, ammelide and cyanurate always a NH2 group is replaced by an OH group. Melaminecyanurate, (melamine and cyanurate molecules are bonded by so-called
hydrogenbridges) is a substance used as flame retardant which prevents rapid fire spreading.

Conclusion: The combination of melamine and cyanurate creates crystals faster and at lower concentrations than melamine and cyanurate alone. That is because the molecules bind so firmly together.
In toxicological studies however, the substances were - as usual - tested separately. Not in combination. Only research on deceased animals showed that the specific combination caused the kidney problems.

In the American press is - due to the Chinese milk scandal - again focus on the combination. In Europe, there was so far little attention to it. "It is strange that nobody here has picked up," says
Prof. Dr. Willem Seinen, biological toxicologist from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands recently; "I supose in China melamine is used very lavishly".

One of the proofs for the harmful combination of melamine and cyanuratet comes from researchers at the company Procter & Gamble. On August 9 this year the journal Toxicological Sciences, put an article of
them online. The researchers gave rats different concentrations and combinations of melamine-like substances. Only the combination of melamine and cyanurate resulted in kidney damage, already at lower concentrations. Procter & Gamble was involved in P & G Pet Care that had sold contaminated canned petfood.

Quoting Mr. Seinen: "The combination may explain why the disease outbreak in China is now so widespread. So now it comes down to the purity of the added melamine. "

The World Health Organization recently put a story online which mentions the link between melamine and cyanurate. Only; in China no cyanurate-test are done, says the WHO.

It's better to see that Chinese government has done something to correct it.

Clearly the governement acted strong, but in the right way ? Because, it is perfectly well possible for foodproducers to keep adding melamine combinations with an acceptable level of melamine, but still dangerous for human or animal health, due to the 2nd additive. So where can we see that the governement did a thorough testing ? I cannot read chinese, but i'd be grateful for links to chinese publications anyhow.