Shannon Bourret
Current event blog 3
February 4, 2009
8:20 pm
The article that I read was about a new study recently posted by the New England Journal of Medicine, about kidney disease risk in Chinese children who were exposed to milk contaminated with melamine. The study revealed that powdered formula that was contaminated with melamine increased the risk of urinary stones by up to sevenfold, but the clinical relevance of these stones, which often produce no symptoms or laboratory abnormalities, is unknown. Melamine is a clear, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid that is rich in nitrogen. The contamination occurred in China when water was added to the milk to increase the volume, leading to a decreased concentration of protein. The addition of melamine increases the nitrogen content of the milk and therefore it seems to have a higher protein content than it actually does. According to studies done on animals, melamine causes bladder stones, which block the small tubes in the kidney potentially stopping the production of urine, causing kidney failure and, possibly even death. China recorded an increase of urolithiasis, the formation of stones in the kidney, bladder and urinary tract, last year, which was most likely due to melamine contamination of powdered-milk formula. The study showed that 421 of the 589 children being studied consumed melamine containing formula. There were 50 children who had confirmed stones, including 8 children without melamine exposure, 112 who had suspected stones, and 427 who had no stones. Children who exposed to formulas with high-melamine content were 7 times more likely to have urinary stones than those given formulas not containing melamine. Preterm infants were 4.5 times more likely to have stones than the full-term infants.
I was immediately intrigued by this article! I am extremely passionate about children and reading this article kind of broke my heart. I can only imagine how much pain those kids were in. I am glad that the problem has been pinpointed and hopefully it can be eliminated.
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2 comments:
This really is such a horrible story. Apparently the Chinese government knew that this was going on but failed to say anything because they didn't realize just how harmful the melamine was. It makes me feel just a little safer that we have agencies like the FDA to protect us from this kind of problem.
Shannon, I agree with you I love kids and this article was heart breaking. I think that the government should have try to do a little more than what they did. I hope that the government can get this problem under control.
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