Poisoning babies with melamine is amusing?

No, the turn of phrase used to describe “baby milk formula” in powder form. “Baby formula powder” implies a kind of powder that produces a baby. Hence, the off-topic comment.

OK, I get it.

It is, in a way, a powder that produces babies. Larger babies, anyway.

And by the way, the legend about Gerber baby food in Africa is reportedly bullshit.[0]

0) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/label-fable/

melamine?! Jesus, that's what my dinnerware is made out of.

That's the monomer, yes.

Simple desire for profit drove adding melamine to milk formula for babies. In that melamine cost less than milk powder. And that it reacted like proteins in the simple test that was commonly used.

Melamine is (C-N)3 in a ring, with NH2 on each of the carbons. And all amino acids have C-NH2 on one end. Thus the name. I gather that the test scored all C-NH2 moieties. So each melamine molecule looks like three amino acids, and contains less other stuff than amino acids on average. Making it a very efficient adulterant.