Transcript of WHO podcast - 9 October 2008

WHO update on the situation of melamine in baby food in China.

Veronica Riemer: You’re listening to the WHO podcast. My name is Veronica Riemer and this is episode 49.

Thousands of babies in China are sick after being fed milk products tainted with industrial chemical melamine. We bring you an update on this crisis.

On 11 September, the Chinese central government and Ministry of Health informed WHO that several thousands of Chinese babies had been diagnosed with kidney stones after being fed milk products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. This crisis is one of the largest food safety events that WHO has ever dealt with. About 54 000 children have been examined, 13 000 of them are in hospitals and four deaths have been reported so far. Dr Peter Ben Embarek, a scientist with the WHO Food Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Diseases Department, spoke to journalists in Geneva about the current situation.

Dr Peter Ben Embarek: It's clear that it has been ongoing for a very long time, at least several months, and it is over the last two weeks that we have comprehended the size and the importance of this event. And since then we have worked very closely with the Chinese authorities in getting the necessary information, getting regular updates on what was happening, on ensuring that contaminated products were identified, removed from the markets to restore as quickly as possible consumer confidence in the supply of products in China and outside.

Veronica Riemer: Melamine is a by-product of coal and is used in a range of industries. Because of its high nitrogen level, under some tests it can be mistaken for protein in milk formula. In the past, it has been added to animal or pet feed to give a high protein reading. WHO scientists say the combination of melamine in powdered milk and cynoric acid caused kidney stones in children. Peter Ben Emberek said that WHO is in contact with the Chinese authorities on a daily basis.

Dr Peter Ben Embarek: The investigation is still ongoing and we are also waiting for the Chinese authorities to finalize this investigation and disclose fully exactly what happened, when, who did what, when, so that we can all learn from this event and find out what went wrong at which point and where we need to strengthen both the national and the international systems to avoid the reoccurrence of a similar event.

Veronica Riemer: Dr Jorgen Schlundt, the Director of the WHO Food Safety Department, has recently returned from Beijing. He came into the studio to tell us what WHO has been doing.

Dr Jorgen Schlundt: WHO works with Member States all over the world to improve food safety, mainly through a network of food safety authorities that we call INFOSAN. We can get information on this melamine contamination event from China to the Member States in a very quick fashion because we go directly to the food safety authorities. They need to know what is happening in China so they can so something in their country to protect their consumers. So that's one way of information.

The other way is that China can use information from external experts, which we are in contact with and therefore when they need information about limits or technical issues in relation to detection methodology, we are able to give it to them through that network.

Veronica Riemer: We asked Dr Schlundt how WHO could help to improve the food safety situation in China.

Dr Jorgen Schlundt: WHO has worked with China for a number of years now, almost 5 years, since we started a collaborative work to analyse what is wrong with the Chinese food safety system. And the specific suggestions go to the main point that we shouldn't have these many independent authorities dealing with the different parts of the food chain. We sometimes have figures in China of up to 16 different authorities are dealing with an issue like the melamine. This should be coherent, this should be either one authority or a lot more efficient than 16 different. Therefore the outcome of the analysis was a suggestion that is now being discussed at the highest level in China in their People's Congress and a new food law, based on this and other things, will then hopefully be implemented from November/December.

Veronica Riemer: And, what would WHO recommend to countries which have imported dairy products from China?

Dr Jorgen Schlundt: The first thing is that we inform specifically the countries that we know have received direct export from China of infant formula that could be tainted. Then we have informed every other country that this is going on, because countries should be alert to the fact that sometimes exports are not only legal exports. There is a lot of illegal export going on. We are not suggesting that everything Chinese should be taken off the shelves. That does not make sense at all. We are suggesting that they should look for infant formula, and if they are incriminated and if we have mentioned them on our web site, they should take them off. If not, it is not a problem.

Veronica Riemer: If you would like more information on WHO's work on food safety, please see our web site:

That's all for this episode of the WHO podcast. Thanks for listening.

If you have any comments on our podcast or have any suggestions for future health topics do drop us a line. Our email address is Podcast@who.int.

For the World Health Organization, this is Veronica Riemer in Geneva.