Nearly half of the dairies in China were shut down in early April, according to Associated Press reports, as the government tried to clean up contaminated milk supplies. The fight to clean up milk processing goes back to 2008 when children became sick and even died from drinking milk contaminated with melamine, an ingredient in plastic making. The contaminant du jour is hydrolyzed leather protein. Like melamine, the leather product makes watered-down milk appear to have normal levels of protein.
