South Korea bans Chinese melamine-tainted cookies

Seoul (South Korea): South Korea has banned imports of Chinese-made food products containing powdered milk following the discovery of biscuits tainted with melamine, the latest country hit by a widening food scare over the industrial chemical.

Seoul's main food watchdog Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said it slapped the import ban after tests found melamine in two biscuit products produced in China, one with a much higher level of the chemical.

The import ban will be kept ''until the safety of Chinese food products is ensured,'' KFDA said in a statement issued late Wednesday.

Chinese baby formula tainted with the chemical has been blamed for the deaths of four infants and the illnesses of 53,000 others in China. Health experts say ingesting a small amount of the chemical poses no danger, but melamine can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable.

More than a dozen countries have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products.

KFDA said it also ordered that the two biscuit products be recalled and destroyed.

The watchdog said it has conducted melamine tests on 162 products so far, and will continue to test other products.

One of the two biscuit products _ named ''Misarang'' which means ''rice love'' in Korean _ was produced in a Chinese factory and was sold in South Korea under the brand name of a leading local confectionary, Haitai Confectionary and Foods Co.

The biscuit was found to contain 137 parts per million of melamine, which translates into 137 milligrams of the chemical in one kilogram of the product.

The other named ''Milk Rusk'' imported from Hong Kong by a separate trading firm, was also produced in China, and it contained 7 parts per million of melamine, KFDA said.

The US Food and Drug Administration-established tolerable daily intake of melamine is 0.63 milligram per kilogram of body weight, according to the World Health Organization Web site.

KFDA was not immediately able to provide information on how much the biscuits have been sold in the country.

But the newspaper Chosun Ilbo said Haitai started bringing in the ''Misarang'' biscuit from China in mid-2005 and have sold 3 billion won (US$2.6 million) worth since. A pack of the biscuit has 12 pieces weighing a total of 66 grams and sells at about 1,500 won (US$1.3).