Be On the Safe Side **EDITED**

I have a cyber friend whose son was adopted from Taiwan around the same time we adopted our daughter. She received an email from a friend about the melamine situation and what you should do if you adopted a child in 2005 or after and are concerned they may have been exposed to melamine. Even though her son was from Taiwan, she had him tested. His urinalysis showed some abnormalities. Her next step is to have a renal ultrasound to see if there is damage.

This is an excerpt from the email: "urinalysis and BUN/Creat on
all children adopted from China from 2005 onward and if abnormal, get
a renal ultrasound"

So, I called my pediatrician and asked if he thought we should test Ansley. He suggested calling poison control. Their answer to me was, yes run the BUN/Creat. If the numbers are abnormal, treat it symptomatically. (in other words, treat it as you would anytime your BUN/Creat numbers came back abnormal.) I asked if there was anything known about what happens to the melamine in the body. Will the body get rid of it? Her answer, "we don't know" They have a team of doctors going to China to study this very question in November.

So for those of you who've adopted from China/Taiwan 2005-2008, you might want to check with your pediatrician and see what they say.

** As of 10/28/09 ** After speaking with my pediatrician, we're going to do a urinalysis. If all comes back within normal limits, we won't do anymore testing. There is no test (as of today) to test for melamine exposure. In the children who died or got sick, it affected their kidneys. If there is a problem with the kidneys, hopefully it will show up in a urinalysis. I'll let you know how that turns out.