The Lahore High Court has rightly taken strong exception to adulterating of pure milk with addition of melamine which is, in fact, an ingredient of plastic. It is used as a non-protein nitrogenous substance to mask the level of protein or SNF (solids not fat) in milk so as to quantitatively increase the pure milk several times but still pass as pure milk with normal SNF. Any amount of melamine is bound to accumulate in kidneys and ultimately cause renal failures. In China, the melamine scandal resulted in making children sick in several hundred thousands and even resulted in some deaths. The Chinese courts gave death penalty to three persons and long imprisonments to others for harming public health. If a small amount of melamine is allowed to be mal-administered in any consumable, there would be no check on its addition in larger amounts. Therefore, the only safe course is to ban its addition to milk completely to safeguard health of people. -DR. M. YAQOOB BHATTI, Lahore, November 19.