FDA Allows Melamine In Infant Formula

[L. Coyote]

Source: eFluxMedia

By Dianna Cooper, November 30th 2008

Although the FDA recently said that melamine in any amount might threaten the health of infant formula consumers, it announced on Friday that the industrial chemical was safe if used in the aforesaid products in small amounts.

Federal regulators set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in infant formula, given that a related chemical is not present. The agency insisted the products are safe, even though in October it couldn’t set a safety contamination level for melamine in baby formula.

In September 2008, Chinese health officials found the industrial chemical in powdered infant formula ... almost 53,000 children became ill, over 12,800 of them were hospitalized and four died. There have been no reports of illnesses in the U.S. and the Food and Drug Administration insisted to assure parents that something similar will not happen there.

Nonetheless, traces of the chemical have been found in samples of U.S. baby formula. Despite this, the agency claims ............

Read more: http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_FDA_Allows_Melamine_In_Infant_Formula_30282.html

[Deja Q]

1. That stuff will pass through adults, but isn't there a risk it'll clog babies' kidneys?

Kidney stones are not fun.

At least it's only trace elements and not a prime constituent.

[kestrel91316]

11. Not at 1 ppm. And not without the simultaneous presence of cyanuric acid, too.

From what I've read in the veterinary literature.

My profession has lots of experience with it, unfortunately.

[CrispyQ]

2. This is how corporations work.

They don't necessarily get rid of all regulation, they simply get the regulation changed so that their product meets the new lower standard.

[LynneSin]

3. Well add that to another thing Obama will have to fix when he starts

:grr:

[msongs]

4. why not breast feed and skip the toxic forumula? nt

[Billy Burnett]

5. Many people can't. Gotta get back to work, to survive, to enrich corporations.

The corporatocracy has us surrounded. There will be no escaping without revolutionary change. I'm sorry to say that I really don't think that is possible in the US.

:(

[MrsMatt]

9. OR, their bodies just can't produce enough to sustain

the needs of their infant, and have to supplement with formula. Speaking from experience.

[shanti]

16. well

before formula, what did they do? :shrug:

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. before formula...

milk.
glass bottles.
goat;s milk if allergies to cow milk.
Warmed milk, then cooled, then in fridge, then warm in a pan of water in the bottle.

Me, my mom, my grandma, her Ma, all the way back to infinity...

I don't understand formula use, myself, but I am over 50.
We fed milk, we fed rice cereal flakes with milk as they got older, then switched to
blender vegies and meat after that.
MY gram had no blender, just chewed it and gave it to the kids.
Which lots of parents did.
Kids seemed to have less allergies.

I also do not get why so many people depend on food being prepared from unkown ingredients, unknown people, from unkown sources.

Hint: The FDA, USDA, etc are NOT your friends.

[shanti]

21. that's what i'm talking about

it was more of a rhetorical question...i'm in my 50's too, and mom didn't nurse me because dad wanted "the girls" all to himself! (yes, he's that selfish!) she used evaporated milk and karo syrup, which is what people used back then.

if you can do it tho, the breast is the best!

[MrsMatt]

6. not everyone is able to breast feed nt.

[ebayfool]

8. Not everyone can breast-feed.

In those cases, the formulas that are on the market should be the purest possible.

[Quantess]

32. Not always an option.

Formula has always been second best, but now formula seems even worse than before.
Can you imagine being one of those many parents who have no other choice than to feed their baby formula that is possibly contaminated with "safe amounts" of melamine?

According to ...Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. It would be dangerous for them to discontinue feeding infant formula to those who depend on it. “If they've been feeding a particular product, they should continue to feed that product. That's in the best interest of the baby."

What an asshole. Dr. Sundlof probably ran an Arabian Horse Association before being hired by the Bush Administration.

[pattmarty]

7. Why don't we just shut down all the regulatory agencies and.....

.....look at all the money we can save and inject into the banking industry? Who needs all these steenkin' regulations that hold back capitalism?:sarcasm:

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

10. Looks like China really does own us!

I wonder when they will change the name and what will it be called United States of China?.

[w4rma]

12. Sick greedy Republican flunkies to China. (nt)

[McCamy Taylor]

13. Some formula had cyanuric acid, some had melamine. If your child gets both, it gets kidney crystals

which can cause damage. There have been no studies to determine if there is a safe amount in infants who are strictly formula fed.

My advice....breastfeed.

[bleever]

26. And if your kid gets two different products,

no one is watching whether or not the "allowable" amounts of the two chemicals might add up to "unallowable".

[Warpy]

14. You're missing a couple of salient points here

First, the FDA has always allowed a certain amount of melamine contaminant because of the melamine containing liner in cans of infant formula. The amount of melamine found in US infant formula is far below the level allowed by the FDA, which itself is far below a toxic level.

Second, the formula itself in China had melamine substituted for milk solids, boosting the protein content in a flawed quality control test. Their level of contamination was enormous, many thousands of times that found in US formula.

In our case, the melamine is a minor contaminant at a sub toxic level. In China's case, melamine was an adulterant added in large amounts that killed infants.

That's the difference and that's the point.

[L. Coyote]

19. We allow toxins in food, placing profit ahead of safety.

That seems a point also.

[Warpy]

20. You can't live your life in a chemical free bubble

not even if you live in it in Antarctica.

Safety levels are far below toxicity.

Deal with the fact that you live in a dangerous world and reducing that danger is the best we can do.

[gravity]

22. The FDA allows mercury in seafood

at concentrations up to 1 ppm. It is much more toxic substance than Melamine, and there is no way to avoid it unless you ban seafood.

There are trace amounts of dangerous chemicals everywhere and you can't avoid them all.

[AllyCat]

23. FDA just recently allowed melamine in food

It came with the bailout in October. NO MELAMINE was allowed in food or infant formula before then. With this little change in the allowances, the formula manufacturers are allowed to put this crap in there. There was a thread on this in the past week or so here at DU. Don't have time to find it now, but it might be easily found with a search.

They are poisoning us so we can please our Chinese masters, pure and simple.

[Mojorabbit]

24. In my latest pro med email

there were these couple of quotes
"Dr. Stephen Sundlof, FDA's director of food
safety, said Friday the agency was confident in
setting the 1 part per million level for either
of the chemicals alone.although there has been
no new scientific studies since October that
would give regulators more safety data. He had no
ready explanation for why the level wasn't set
earlier."

and

The FDA and other experts said they believe the
melamine contamination in U.S.-made formula had
occurred during the manufacturing process, rather
than intentionally. The U.S. government quietly
began testing domestically produced infant
formula in September, soon after problems with
melamine-spiked formula surfaced in China.

and

There is a gap between the concentration that the
FDA detected in formula and the agency's estimate
of how much melamine could contaminate food from
the manufacturing process. The expected
contamination from processing - 15 parts per
billion - is about one-tenth the amount that the
agency has detected in infant formula. FDA
officials have not responded to questions from
the AP this week about how that gap might be
explained.

The agency said it is continuing research on
animals to see the effects of ingesting both
melamine and cyanuric acid.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081129/ap_on_he_me/infant_formula

[Shallah Kali]

28. When asked the FDA could not provide sources for it's reasoning that the 'safe' amount is safe

No studies to prove that it isn't doing damage that won't lead to later problems down the road. Just their word which isn't very good in my book after the lies the told about pet food being safe only to announce batch after batch of poisoned food. Then they promised no poisoned pet food or grains were fed to meat animals and if they were it wouldn't be sold. Once it was found out how much was out there they allowed it and never tested the kidneys of the melamine feed pigs and chickens to see how much damage was done.

[shanti]

15. it's added

added and for what reason?! the PROFIT margin...this is unacceptable for babies, ours or china's!

[More_liberal_than_mo]

17. Is our own FDA trying to poison us all?

If they allow this then we will soon see poisoning of our food supply on a grand scale. This has to be overruled as top priority by Obama's FDA before babies start dying in the USA like they recently did in China.

For years US meat and dairy farms have used cyanuric acid for the same reason their Chinese counterparts have used melamine, to cheat the consumer market into thinking their products are higher in protein than they actually are. Both sides have gotten away with because both of these adulterations by themselves in small quantities cause no harm. All food adulterations have been illegal in the US since 1938. http://www.answers.com/topic/adulteration-of-food When both melamine contaminated and cyanuric acid contaminated foods are combined in a food substance it forms highly toxic crystals in the kidneys of the animal or human that consumes it. http://www.itchmo.com/study-shows-combo-of-melamine-and-cyanuric-acid-leads-to-
This first showed up last year in cat food poisoning cases. It was caused when melamine from Chinese sources was combined with cyanuric contaminated ingredients in the US. http://acute-kidney-failure-in-cats-3831 http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/08/business/petfood.php

Since then some Chinese factories have started mixing milk products from Chinese dairy markets with other milk products from US and European milk products. The resulting toxic cocktails where then used in many products from baby formula to chocolate and candies. http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia9930.html

edited to correct multiple grammatical errors.

[lovuian]

25. yep

yep

[lonestarnot]

29. most assuredly.

[Quantess]

27. Outrageous.

[tom_paine]

30. The FDA: Protecting Corporations from filthy, worthless people for four decades.

:puke:

[rucky]

31. Let's see what the "Free Market" says about that.

I can't think of a single mom who would be comforted by this declaration.