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15 June 2012| last updated at 01:31PM

Baby formula tainted with mercury recalled



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BEIJING: Chinese dairy maker Yili said it had started recalling batches of baby formula after authorities found they contained high levels of mercury, in the latest food safety scare to hit the country.

The company began the recall on Wednesday after a national food safety  monitoring system detected “abnormal” levels of mercury in the products,  state-owned Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group said in a statement.

The recall covers baby formula produced from November 2011 to May 2012,  according to the statement posted Thursday.

The firm did not clarify how much baby formula was affected or how mercury  — which is extremely toxic and can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and  immune system at high exposure — made its way into the products.

China’s quality watchdog said Thursday it had carried out an “urgent  monitoring” of 715 samples of baby formula by various producers following the  Yili case, but so far no other products were found to be unsafe.

However, authorities were unable to collect samples from 20 firms because  they had suspended production of baby formula, the General Administration of  Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said in a statement.

It was unclear when they stopped production and whether this was linked to  the mercury scare.

Currently, 119 companies in China manufacture baby formula, state media  cited Ma Chunliang, an official with AQSIQ, as saying last month.

China’s dairy industry is prone to safety scares.

In 2008, milk was at the centre of one of China’s biggest food safety  scandals when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally  added to dairy products to give the appearance of higher protein content.

Since then, many Chinese people remain suspicious of domestically-produced  milk after six children died and 300,000 others fell ill in the scandal, which  also involved Yili products.

There have been accusations the government, keen to ensure China’s growing  demand for milk is catered to, is giving in to an increasingly powerful dairy  industry dominated by Yili and another dairy giant Mengniu.

Critics say the hygiene standards that China’s dairy farms must adhere to  are among the world’s lowest, with the levels of bacteria permissible in milk  four times as high as in most Western countries.  - AFP

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