Sex shop body spreads tainted with China melamine

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Chocolate-flavoured body spreads sold in British sex shops have been found to be tainted with melamine, the chemical that made thousands of babies ill in China, food safety authorities said on Monday.

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) said melamine had been found in Chinese-made "I Love You" sets, sold at Ann Summers sex shops, containing chocolate and strawberry body pens and chocolate-flavoured penis and nipple spreads.

"This is a first. We've never had to put out an alert before on 'willy spread' -- chocolate-flavoured or otherwise," the FSA said on its Web site, www.foodstandards.gov.uk.

It said the health risk from the affected products was low.

At least four children died in China and thousands of others were treated in hospital after consuming milk powder containing melamine, an industrial compound added to cheat quality tests.

Dozens of countries have since banned imports of Chinese dairy ingredients and recalled products ranging from cookies to herbal drugs and octopus dumplings.

Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety expert at the World Health Organisation (WHO), said national authorities needed to widen their checks and tests.

"Milk powder is a very common ingredient in a very large range of products, from candies to biscuits, chocolates, drinks, and so on and so on," he said.