In article <94I_h.10$wy2.4@trnddc03>, wff_ng_7 > wrote:

>"Steve Pope" > wrote:

>> wff_ng_7 > wrote:

>>> The reason both chemicals are believed to be present is that
>>> the adulteration was not done with pure melamine, but with
>>> melamine industrial scrap

>> That part I haven't heard. There's also the bacteria theory.
>> In any case the two chemicals are closely related and they
>> crystallize together into huge, damaging crystals.

>I've read the melamine scrap connection in several articles now. It has
>made its
>way into the Wikipedia entry for melamine
>(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine):

>On May 2, Richard Goldstein of the Cornell University College of Veterinary
>Medicine, in response to reports that the contaminant might be "melamine
>scrap",
>hypothesized: "It's possible the other stuff they were left with was the
>bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, leftover melamine and possibly cyanuric acid. I
>think it's this melamine with other compounds that is toxic."

>
>In addition, I've read (probably on the NY Times web site) that the
>company that
>shipped the contaminated wheat gluten to the USA has many times advertised on a
>Chinese business web site requesting supplies of scrap melamine. One comes to
>the conclusion that the request for melamine scrap is directly related to the
>melamine being in the wheat gluten.

I think the difference here is that scrap melamine is speculated
to contain cyanuric acid, but nobody has done a chemical analysis
on it to prove this. Whereas cyanuric acid has been directly
identified as the result of bacterial action on melamine.

Steve