In a burgeoning scandal, more than 6,200 Chinese children have gotten sick, and three have died, after drinking contaminated milk products. More than 150 children are now in critical condition. The contaminant is melamine—the same chemical added illegally by Chinese traders to toothpaste, milk, and pet food over the past few years, which has caused harm to people around the world and killed many in China. (In 2004, 13 babies died from melamine-contaminated milk products.) Chinese counterfeiters use melamine because it mimics protein in chemical tests, and testing for the right quantity of protein is the easiest way to establish that a white liquid/powder is milk or that other food items are genuine.

“This is a severe food safety accident,” Chinese health ministry official Gao Qiang declared, vowing to “severely punish and discipline those people and workers who have acted illegally.” (The BBC reports that 19 people have now been arrested.) Gao reassured international experts that “none of the milk powder was exported to other countries or regions,” although a small amount was sold to Taiwan for use in dairy product processing. But now it appears that many countries in Asia and Africa may be affected.

More than 6,200 children have gotten sick, and three have died, after drinking contaminated milk products.

The company making the contaminated milk is the Sanlu Group, and according to Gao it has been told to cease production. At least 700 tons of the milk powder are in circulation and have been recalled. New Zealand-based dairy-product firm Fonterra Cooperative Group, a part-owner of Sanlu, pushed for the recall. In a statement released on Sunday, Fonterra claimed that it told Sanlu to recall the milk powder in China six weeks ago but was ignored. Fonterra then told the New Zealand government, which informed Chinese authorities, who then acted.

Counterfeit experts say it is difficult to track milk powder contaminated with melamine because the basic tests available in China yield inconclusive results. Accurate results can be achieved quickly with the use of handheld spectrometers. In my experience, spectrometers (using Raman technology) can assess product veracity within 30 seconds.

Given how many lives are at stake, Chinese authorities should be distributing such devices to their key regulators. To be sure, enforcing quality controls in such a massive country is extremely difficult: China has 31 provinces and 333 districts, in which there are more than 6,000 manufacturers of Western drugs and more than 2,000 traditional Chinese drug makers, plus tens of thousands of food producers and wholesalers. In the current crisis, rapid feedback is vital.

Chinese officials recognize that concerns over food and drug quality are well founded. In early April, I spoke with Jin Shaohong, director of China’s National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products. He told me that “14 percent of the many thousands of drug samples tested in 1998 were of low quality.” Degraded antibiotics like amoxicillin were prevalent.

Since 1998, post-marketing quality surveillance has improved and poor-quality producers have been shut down. Of the more than 40,000 drug treatments tested in Anhui and Guangxi Provinces over the past two years, between 3 percent and 10 percent were substandard. That represents an improvement, but much work remains to be done.

China has made less progress on ensuring the quality of its food products. Indeed, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials are worried that China’s food-safety controls are weaker than its drug-safety mechanisms. If there is a silver lining from the recent food recall it is that Chinese authorities are under heightened pressure to reform.

Roger Bate is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image by The Bergman Group/Dianna Ingram.