Fears over tainted milk powder

Chinese consumers expressed concerns about the safety of dairy products imported from New Zealand over the weekend, after the country's Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) disclosed on Thursday that some of the products had been found to contain a toxic substance.

But dairy products imported from New Zealand were still on sale in Chinese markets by press time, and both Chinese experts and the MPI said over the weekend that very low levels of dicyandiamide (DCD) would not pose a risk to people's health.

DCD residues were found in some of the products that had been made in September by leading New Zealand dairy company Fonterra Cooperative Group, the MPI said in a statement Thursday, but the residues were not present in the same products made in November.

But Chinese consumers, especially mothers of small babies, said they still felt concerned.

"There would be almost no milk powder that could be trusted if New Zealand dairy products are found to contain toxic substances," Li Ming, a 28-year-old mother in Beijing, told the Global Times Sunday.

Many Chinese consumers have turned to imported milk powder since 2008, when the industrial chemical melamine was found in dairy products from several Chinese companies.

The chemical caused the deaths of at least six babies and sickness in around 300,000 people.

Milk powder from New Zealand currently accounts for around 75 percent of milk powder imports, and many foreign brands like Wyeth have products made using milk from New Zealand, Wang Dingmian, director of the Guangzhou Dairy Industry Association, told the Global Times Sunday.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has asked related government departments in New Zealand to offer more details about the tainted dairy products, Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday.

Later on Saturday, the MPI published a statement on its website, which was also translated into Chinese, offering reassurance about the safety of New Zealand dairy products.

"These small DCD residues pose no food safety risk. DCD itself is not poisonous," MPI Director-General Wayne McNee said in the statement, noting that there has been no use of DCD in New Zealand pastures since September 2012.

The Ministry said DCD has been used by less than 5 percent of the country's dairy farmers who applied it only twice a year, and that it is used in pastures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the leaching of nitrogen into waterways.

Fonterra China said on its Sina Weibo Sunday that it welcomed MPI's statement and reiterated that its products are harmless.

"Consumers need not be concerned. The DCD case is not harmful, unlike the melamine- dairy scandal in 2008, because the content is at a very low level," Wang said.

"Also, human beings can tolerate a certain amount of DCD," Wang noted.

Foreign milk powder brands that use New Zealand milk including Wyeth and Abbott are still on sale in major cities including Beijing.