Melamine found in eggs from China

HONG KONG, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Food safety officials in Hong Kong say they found excessive amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in another batch of eggs from mainland China.

A spokesman for Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety said the tainted eggs were sold at a wholesale market and distributed to local bakeries only, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The eggs were found to contain 4.7 parts per million of melamine which is nearly double Hong Kong's legal limit of 2.5 parts per million, the newspaper said.

According to the Center for Food Safety, a child weighing 27 pounds would have to eat more than 13 of the tainted eggs in one day to be at risk.

Earlier this week Chinese health officials reported that 294,000 children had been sickened by melamine-tainted milk.

The chemical used to make plastics and other goods was added to powdered baby formula and other dairy products to make the protein content appear higher.