Chinese-made instant coffee may contain the contaminant melamine.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The latest effects of the ongoing Chinese food-safety scandal hit the U.S. on Friday, as the Federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced a recall of seven Chinese-made instant coffee and milk-tea products by King Car Food Industrial Co. Ltd. The products could be contaminated with melamine, a form of plastic that sickened more than 50,000 infants in China earlier this month after it turned up in baby formula. It’s also believed to cause kidney stones in adults. The contaminant is blamed for killing thousands of pets in the U.S last year. Several countries, including those in the European Union, have banned all dairy-product imports from China until the situation is brought under control. The FDA has yet to take that step.

THE DETAILS: The recall includes the following items made in China, but the FDA says no one in the U.S. has gotten sick from the recalled coffee and tea products so far:

• Mr. Brown Mandheling Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
• Mr. Brown Arabica Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
• Mr. Brown Blue Mountain Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
• Mr. Brown Caramel Macchiato Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
• Mr. Brown French Vanilla Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
• Mr. Brown Mandheling Blend Instant Coffee (2-in-1)
• Mr. Brown Milk Tea (3-in-1)

The FDA is also recommending that consumers not eat White Rabbit Creamy Candy, as the brand was found by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority to contain high concentrations of melamine.
U.S. makers of baby formula have stated that they use no ingredients from China. While the brands of formula that made Chinese infants sick aren’t sold in the U.S., the FDA has been scouring Asian markets here to make sure none are available illegally. Some watchdog groups say the FDA isn’t going far enough. On Thursday, the public-health advocacy group Food & Water Watch sent a letter to the FDA, asking the agency to stop all imports of all dairy products or by-products made in China—including powdered milk, milk protein concentrate, casein, and whey concentrate—until officials get a handle on it. “We’ve globalized food production; we’ve really lost control over what people are eating and what information is available to the consumer,” says Tony Corbo, legislative representative with Food & Water Watch. The dairy protein casein, for example, is used in many processed foods; in July, the U.S. imported nearly 300,000 pounds of it from China. But it’s hard to know which products might be contaminated, since there’s no system in place to trace processed food ingredients to their country of origin.