New melamine-tainted milk products found in southwestern China

Local health officials have pulled melamine-tainted milk products off the shelves in a southwestern Chinese province in the latest case of tainted food items, state media reported today.

The three batches of affected food products in Guizhou Province include ice popsicles and unspecified food items from a dairy company, the China Daily newspaper reported, quoting reports from the Chinese-language National Business Daily.

Six children died and some 300,000 were sickened in a 2008 milk scandal in which milk formula products were found to contain illegally high traces of melamine, a toxic industrial chemical.

In November, China executed two people for their role in the scandal, which also resulted in the bankruptcy of state-owned dairy producer Sanlu Group.

Since the scandal, regulations on food safety have been introduced to ensure higher standards, tighter inspections and a product recall system.

But a series of recent cases where melamine-tainted products were uncovered by regulators in different Chinese provinces raises questions of how effectively the new laws are being enforced.

Just this year, state media reported that a Shanghai dairy company implicated in the Sanlu milk powder scandal had been closed down and three of its executives arrested after they were found to be producing milk powder with illegal levels of melamine.