The International Herald Tribune reports that officials have destroyed 3,600 tons of animal feed tainted with the chemical melamine:
In what appears to be the biggest food safety crackdown in years, the government also said Saturday that it had closed 238 illegal feed makers in a series of nationwide sweeps that involved more than 369,000 government inspectors.
The aggressive moves come amid growing worries that the Chinese animal feed industry could be contaminated by melamine, endangering the national food supply and posing a health threat to consumers.
Over the past week and a half, eggs produced in three different Chinese provinces were found to be tainted with high levels of melamine, a chemical commonly used to make plastic and fertilizer. And in September, melamine-tainted milk supplies were blamed for sickening more than 50,000 children and causing at least four deaths in China.
Read CDT’s previous coverage of the contaminated milk crisis.