Most liquid milk on the market did not contain melamine and was safe to drink, Chinese quality watchdog said on Thursday following a nationwide special check on the chemical.

The chemical was first found in a top powder milk brand, Sanlu, earlier this month that caused kidney stones and kidney failure among babies.

Chinese State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), along with 150 state level food testing centers, checked more than 400 liquid milk producers, and found most diary products were safe to drink.

The 408 liquid milk producers, including Sanyuan and Nestle, were not found containing the chemical.

However, the test results showed nearly 10 percent of the sample batches tested from Mengniu and Yili, 2 top brands on Chinese diary market, contained 0.8 - 7 and 0.7 - 8.4 milligrams of melamine per kilogram respectively while 6 batches out of 93 from Bright, contained 0.6 to 8.6 milligrams of melamine per kilogram.

Medical experts said that it would not cause any illness such as kidney stones for an adult who drink less than 2 liters of such milk daily.

The administration also urged producers to recall all contaminated products, find the source of the problem and punish severely those held responsible.

(Xinhua News Agency September 18, 2008)