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Voice of Aurora: Malamine rule needs research to back it up
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By THE VOICE OF AURORA
The Aurora Sentinel
Neither the government nor the media are doing the public any good by rushing through the process of setting “safe” limits for melamine in baby formula, recently discovered here in the United States.
Late last week, the Food and Drug Administration suddenly announced that 1 part per million of melamine, or an associated chemical, was an acceptable level if found in infant formula. The announcement came after news broke earlier in the week that the government had detected melamine in American-made infant formulas.
Melamine is a decades-old plastic used in hundreds of items, including eating and cooking utensils. Anyone who grew up poor or middle class in the United States during the 1960s or 1970s almost undoubtedly ate on melamine plates or bowls for at least part of their lives. The unbreakable plates were popular restaurant fixtures for generations, and still are in thousand of school cafeterias across the country.
The chemical was never created to be food. It was some unethical and treacherous Chinese food companies that first added the ground substance to pet food then milk products as a way to increase profits. The relatively cheap chemical contains a high level of nitrogen, which tricks protein-level tests for quality assurance. No one dreamed that someone would be so unscrupulous as to add the substance to food intended for people as a way of boosting profits.
With tens of thousands of Chinese children sickened by the intentional contamination, and some killed, and American consumers nervous about whether the toxic milk products have been shipped here and incorporated in our own foods, the U.S. government and the media began making mistakes.
For the last few months, FDA officials said they couldn’t yet set a safe-unsafe limit for melamine in food, and especially baby formula. But with the release last Tuesday of information about miniscule amounts of the chemical found in formula made by a major U.S. maker, FDA officials abruptly announced that 1 part of melamine per million in infant formula is “safe.”
It’s misleading. Government officials should first point out that it’s nearly certain that the melamine found in American foods has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone intentionally adding it. Instead, it comes from foods coming in contact with melamine-clad processing equipment. And very clearly, it has probably been inside foods at some small level for decades.
It doesn’t mean that this is a harmless chemical, but it does mean that it’s pretty clear that ingesting the material at the level it’s been found in food for years is not particularly or even remotely dangerous to human health.
While this chemical has been studied in relation to the health and other animals since before World War II, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that 1 part per million might be safe, whereas 1.1 part per million or more might be dangerous.
Rather than rush to give the public what is clearly an arbitrary number, the FDA should have insisted that the infant formulas are safe simply because they have always had low levels of a variety of unavoidable contaminants that do not affect human health. That’s not a particularly salivating marketing ploy, but it’s honest and easy to understand.
The FDA should recall their recommendation and work to find one that’s meaningful instead of convenient.
Late last week, the Food and Drug Administration suddenly announced that 1 part per million of melamine, or an associated chemical, was an acceptable level if found in infant formula. The announcement came after news broke earlier in the week that the government had detected melamine in American-made infant formulas.
Melamine is a decades-old plastic used in hundreds of items, including eating and cooking utensils. Anyone who grew up poor or middle class in the United States during the 1960s or 1970s almost undoubtedly ate on melamine plates or bowls for at least part of their lives. The unbreakable plates were popular restaurant fixtures for generations, and still are in thousand of school cafeterias across the country.
The chemical was never created to be food. It was some unethical and treacherous Chinese food companies that first added the ground substance to pet food then milk products as a way to increase profits. The relatively cheap chemical contains a high level of nitrogen, which tricks protein-level tests for quality assurance. No one dreamed that someone would be so unscrupulous as to add the substance to food intended for people as a way of boosting profits.
With tens of thousands of Chinese children sickened by the intentional contamination, and some killed, and American consumers nervous about whether the toxic milk products have been shipped here and incorporated in our own foods, the U.S. government and the media began making mistakes.
For the last few months, FDA officials said they couldn’t yet set a safe-unsafe limit for melamine in food, and especially baby formula. But with the release last Tuesday of information about miniscule amounts of the chemical found in formula made by a major U.S. maker, FDA officials abruptly announced that 1 part of melamine per million in infant formula is “safe.”
It’s misleading. Government officials should first point out that it’s nearly certain that the melamine found in American foods has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone intentionally adding it. Instead, it comes from foods coming in contact with melamine-clad processing equipment. And very clearly, it has probably been inside foods at some small level for decades.
It doesn’t mean that this is a harmless chemical, but it does mean that it’s pretty clear that ingesting the material at the level it’s been found in food for years is not particularly or even remotely dangerous to human health.
While this chemical has been studied in relation to the health and other animals since before World War II, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that 1 part per million might be safe, whereas 1.1 part per million or more might be dangerous.
Rather than rush to give the public what is clearly an arbitrary number, the FDA should have insisted that the infant formulas are safe simply because they have always had low levels of a variety of unavoidable contaminants that do not affect human health. That’s not a particularly salivating marketing ploy, but it’s honest and easy to understand.
The FDA should recall their recommendation and work to find one that’s meaningful instead of convenient.
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