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Chinese Experts Confirm Melamine-Kidney Stone Link

Despite official denials, melamine suspected in U.S. illnesses

By Mark Huffman and Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 13, 2009

• Chemnutra Owners Sentenced for Melamine-Tainted Pet Food • Virginia Child's Kidney Problems May Be Due to Melamine-Tainted Candy • Chinese Companies Pay $160 Million Over Melamine Scandal • Topaz Wafer Rolls Recalled on Melamine Fears • Melamine Triggers Recall of Cocoa from Canada • Vietnam Company Recalls Biscuits Due to Melamine • USDA Will Test Meat Products for Melamine • Melamine Found in Walgreens Chocolate Bars • Chinese Infant Death Toll from Tainted Formula Rises • Some Melamine in Infant Formula is OK, FDA Says • FDA Finds Melamine in U.S. Infant Formula • FDA Blocks Chinese Products Over Melamine Fears • Melamine Scandal Continues to Expand • FDA's Melamine Decision Scares Consumers • DeLauro Raps FDA On Melamine Risk Guidelines • FDA Issues Report On Melamine and Food Safety • Melamine-Tainted Chinese Candy Shows Up in U.S. • Hershey's Says Chocolates Are Safe from Chinese Melamine Scandal • Cadbury Recalls Chinese-Made Chocolates Due to Melamine • Melamine Scare Spreads to Mr. Brown Coffee • Chinese Gorillas Fall Ill as Melamine Scandal Widens • FDA Updates Chinese Infant Formula Warning • Asian Baby Death Toll From Infant Formula Rises • FDA Issues Warning on Chinese-Made Infant Formula

Drinking milk tainted with the chemical melamine increases the risk of developing kidney stones, health experts in China have confirmed.

The research is the first to positively link the plastic-making chemical with kidney problems, though doctors had strongly suspected a causal relationship. Melamine-tainted milk is blamed for the deaths of six children in China and making another 290,000 people sick.

Melamine-tainted candy is suspected in the illness of a Virginia girl and in the unexplained illness and deaths of thousands of family pets throughout the United States.

The chemical, used by some Chinese food manufacturers to register a higher nutritional value, is the source of a major scandal in China and has strained relations with its major trading partners.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says melamine-tainted food was not imported into the U.S., though anecdotal — meaning real-life — evidence suggests some products containing the chemical did in fact make it to U.S. shores.

In 2007 thousands of U.S. pets were killed or sickened because of melamine contained in pet food that imported from China. Unexplained animal deaths and illnesses continue to this day, without noticeable action or concern by agencies responsible for protecting the public.

In the kidney stone study, Chinese researchers analyzed urine sample of 15 Chinese children with kidney stones. The samples were compared to those from other children who consumed the tainted milk but did not develop kidney stones.

They concluded that melamine alone can lead to the creation of kidney stones, whose size are directly related with the amount of melamine that is consumed. Not everyone who comes in contact with melamine develops kidney stones, however. The researchers say there is a "safe level," above which the risk escalates.

Melamine is used to make fertilizers, plastics and other industrial goods. It is rich in nitrogen and can fool tests for protein in food products, leading unscrupulous food processors to use it in food and dairy products.

The study was published in the International Journal of Clinical Chemistry and Diagnostic Laboratory Medicine.

Halloween candy

In Virginia, a mother is convinced her six-year-old daughter received some melamine-tainted candy on Halloween — and those goodies caused the little girl's recent kidney problems. Maria H. of Suffolk says her six-year-old daughter, Jordan, never had any health problems until she ate some chocolates she received on Halloween.

Since then, Maria said, her daughter has experienced symptoms that doctors and the World Health Organization say are consistent with melamine poisoning — irritability, lethargy, pain in her right flank, high blood pressure, and crystals in her urine.

"My daughter had more than 20,000 crystals in her urine," Maria told ConsumerAffairs.com. "She was very sick (in mid-November) and refused to eat or drink for a week. She continued to get sicker and sicker. The doctor said it was the flu and she should be fine in a few days."

But Jordan's condition did not improve.

"She started having pain in her right flank," Maria said, adding her daughter was nauseous, vomiting, and had high blood pressure. "She was in an extreme amount of pain. The doctors thought she might have appendicitis."

Maria rushed her daughter to the emergency room.

"The E.R. staff was stumped," she said of Jordan's illness. "They took a CAT scan and were just about ready to send her home when her lab results came back. That's when we learned she had more than 20,000 crystals in her urine...the doctor seemed alarmed by that many crystals in urine."

The cause of all those crystals, however, baffled the emergency room physicians and staff.

"They said 'your daughter has suffered some kidney problems and has some crystals and a high amount of protein in her urine,' " Maria says, adding she pushed for the urinalysis. "But we don't know what they are or what's causing them."

The doctors tried to rule out some likely suspects.

"They asked if she drank soda and I said: 'No.' They asked about a high sodium diet. I said we have no sodium in our house. We eat all healthy, organic foods. I asked them what else could cause this and they said they didn't know.

"We've called every relative to see any has had any kidney problems," Maria added. "There is no family history of kidney stones. I've eliminated every possibility."

That's how Maria pinpointed the Halloween candy as the culprit of her daughter's illness. "We're sure it was the candy; it has to be."

The emergency room doctors didn't downplay her suspicions. "They said melamine in Chinese-made infant formula and other milk products had caused kidney problems in children in that country."

Difficult to prove

As ConsumerAffairs.com has reported, melamine-tainted milk products are blamed for last year's deaths of at least six babies in China and the urinary-related problems in nearly 300,000 other children in that country.

Chinese officials discovered some dairy plants added melamine — a chemical used to make plastic and fertilizer — to powered milk products to make them appear to have higher protein levels.

Melamine is not approved for use in foods sold in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, recently concluded that melamine levels below 2.5 parts per million (ppm) do not raise health concerns.

The only exception is infant formula. The FDA now says melamine levels of 1 ppm or less in infant formula are safe.

The tentacles of China's melamine-tainted milk scandal spread to scores of other products sold in the United States and around the world, including eggs, yogurt, liquid milk, teas, and chocolates.

And those tainted products, Maria says, ultimately made their way to her quiet neighbor in Virginia and into her daughter's Halloween bag.

That's her theory, anyway. Proving it, however, is going to be difficult.

"There's no way to test the candy because my daughter ate it all," Maria said. "But we're sure the candy was tainted with melamine because our daughter has been healthy her whole life and this (Halloween candy) was the only thing new in her diet."

Maria also recalled seeing pieces of candy in her daughter's Halloween bag that looked like the melamine-tainted White Rabbit Creamy Candy, which were imported from China and distributed in the United States last September.

"I think what she ate were those little bunny candies that look like Tootsie Rolls," Marie says. "She probably ate several of them and that's what made her sick. Children don't just randomly get kidney stones. Something causes them. In this case, it has to be that tainted candy."

She added, "I have a three-year-old son. He doesn't like the same candy as Jordan. He likes the hard candies and she love chocolates. My son didn't eat those chocolates and he didn't get sick. There's no doubt in my mind what happened."

Maria contacted the FDA about her daughter's illness, but says the agency ignored her concerns. "They didn't take me seriously. They didn't seem concerned at all. They didn't take a report. The only agency that took a report was my local health department."

Maria said she contacted ConsumerAffairs.com to warn other parents about this potential danger — a job she says the FDA isn't doing.

"The FDA says on its Web site that no American children haven been affected by melamine. But that's not true. My daughter was affected badly. We thought we were going to lose her."

ConsumerAffairs.com contacted the FDA about Maria's concerns. The agency did not return our calls.

"This case should be investigated"

ConsumerAffairs.com also contacted Dr. Leslie Spry, a spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation. He wouldn't comment specifically on Jordan's case or make a diagnosis.

But the Nebraska-based nephrologist said Jordan's symptoms should be investigated further.

"Crystalluria (crystals in the urine) is a very uncommon event, especially in children," Dr. Spry told us. "I'd have her go to a pediatric nephrologist to find out if there is any damage to the kidneys. I'd want to know if there are still any crystals in the little girl's urine, what type of crystals, and if they've caused any damage."

Dr. Spry said Maria should also find out if there is any acid in her daughter's urine.

"If there is acid in the urine that might hint that maybe there is melamine," he said. "What we want is the pH level and a description of the crystals. Some are needle-like; others are hexagon-shaped. They all look different under a microscope.

"This [case] should be investigated."

Dr. Spry also confirmed that "melamine intoxication" can damage the kidneys. "I have not seen a case of melamine intoxication that I was aware of, but it does indeed cause kidney damage by producing crystals in the urine."

Melamine, however, isn't the only source of that problem.

"There are a number of other causes of crystalluria," Dr. Spry said. "(They) include drinking antifreeze (ethylene glycol) or vitamin C overdose (which causes oxalate crystals to be seen in the urine). Uric acid crystals can be seen in patients with certain kinds of leukemia and cancers in children. Uric acid crystals look different in the urine depending on the pH (amount of acid) in the urine."

Back in Virginia, Maria continues to dig for answers to her daughter's illness.

She ruled out Dr. Spry's possibilities, saying there isn't any antifreeze around her home, her children don't take vitamins, and her daughter doesn't have cancer.

Maria next plans to take Jordan to a kidney specialist, just like Dr. Spry recommended."I've already called and talked to several people at the hospital about the lab results. They said they didn't know what types of crystals were in my daughter's urine."

Maria is still waiting for copies of those lab reports. In the meantime, she's contacted parents in her neighborhood to see if their children experienced similar health problems as Jordan's.

"I've learned that three kids on my street all had flu-like symptoms — just like Jordan's — shortly after Halloween. There were all sick the same week (in mid-November). Those moms were all concerned, but they didn't take their kids to the emergency room and get a urinalysis."

She adds, "A lot of parents might be told their children have the flu and they should just wait it out. My daughter was initially diagnosed with the flu. It was only when we took her to the children's hospital — and I pushed for a urinalysis — that we learned she didn't have the flu. She had kidney stones."

Maria is worried about the long-term effects this illness will have on her daughter.

"She hasn't been the same since Halloween," she said. "She's thin, pale, has bags under her eyes, and complains of a stomach ache every day. She's also paranoid every time she gets a stomach ache that we're going to have to take her back to the emergency room. This whole thing is very scary."

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