Since the news about melamine-tainted milk in China hit the media a couple of weeks ago,  I don’t think a day has passed without some new revelation about this heart-sickening problem.

Much has been revealed about the scope of the contamination and the ramifications in China since my initial post on babygooroo.

Here’s an update, with links for more information.

• Several countries have been affected, including: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, Phillipines, and even the U.S. (Here’s a summary from earlier today.)

• Melamine, a binding agent used in plastics and as a flame retardant, was mixed with formaldehyde to make it dissolve. (My stomach drops again, this time at the idea of formaldehyde in these substances.)

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set “safe” limits of melamine in foods.  The agency states that no amount is safe in infant formula, but that amounts less than 2.5 parts per million are “risk free” in other foods. (Am I the only one to think the addition of a plastic, flame retardant agent to our food is completely unacceptable?)

• Chinese officials and dairies seem to have known about the adulteration of the milk and its health consequences. MSNBC looked at the government’s actions before and after the recent outbreak of infant illness.

• The addition of melamine to Chinese milk has been widespread. Melamine has been found in products from more than 20 Chinese dairies.

• The problem is not new. At least one of the milk suppliers began adding it to milk three years ago. The formula maker Sanlu began receiving complaints from parents about infants sickened by formula as early as last December. Doctors and reporters began sounding the alarm this past spring.

• More products than just infant formula are affected. As if formula isn’t bad enough, AP writer Audra Ang reports that contamination has also been found in liquid milk, yogurt, and other milk-containing products. Cadbury recalled a 11 types of chocolates that were made with Chinese milk. Authorities in Hong Kong reported that melamine was found in Chinese-made milk tablets and in cookies made by Japan’s Lotte China Foods Co.

• Chinese government officials have promised better food safety, ethics. Let’s hope so. But will American markets, still reeling from a series of recent reports about lead-tainted Chinese-made toys, accept this so easily? Should they?

• One feeding method Chinese parents can control has had a resurgence in popularity: Breastfeeding.  Reuters writer Tan Ee Lynn reports on a joint statement released by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

• One feeding product also has had a resurgence in popularity: “Wet nursing.” The Wall Street Journal’s Geoffrey A. Fowler and Juliet Ye report on a new, demand-driven market for the milk mothers make in China. For some, expressed human milk may be agreeable; other families who seek wet nurses want them to live with the paying family, leaving their own infants behind.

• La Leche League encourages relactation. Resources and information are available from the international organization.