China's quality inspection agency has shut down nearly half of the nation's dairy producers for failing to pass inspection tests and is forcing them to clean up their production policies, according to reports from Beijing. Highly toxic and poisonous substances have been detected in milk products from the nation's fast-growing but poorly operated dairy industry. In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 fell ill from powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial chemical added to low quality or diluted milk that fools inspectors with misleadingly high measures of protein levels. Earlier this year, quality authorities tried to calm distraught consumers who had gotten word of reports that some manufacturers had illegally added a leather protein powder to dairy products.
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