Melamine Update: FDA sets melamine standard for baby formula
Posted by: Joshuah in Health, Kill Off, tags: Baby Formula, Chemicals, Contamination Level, Fda, Food And Drug, Food And Drug Administration, Food Safety, melamine, RegulatorsSee, how convenient that the FDA sets a limit for melamine that is below the limits discovered in US manufactured baby formula. As I implied earlier, the only person who is actually going to do something about this is YOU, if you can get off your butt and start…
Source: Yahoo! News
Less than two months after federal food regulators said they were unable to set a safety threshold for the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula, they announced a standard that allows for higher levels than those found in U.S.-made batches of the product.Food and Drug Administration officials on Friday set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula, provided a related chemical isn’t present. They insisted the formulas are safe.
The setting of the standard comes days after The Associated Press reported that FDA tests found traces of melamine in the infant formula of one major U.S. manufacturer and cyanuric acid, a chemical relative, in the formula of a second major maker. The contaminated samples, which both measured at levels below the new standard, were analyzed several weeks ago.
The FDA had stated in early October that it was unable to set a safety contamination level for melamine in infant formula.
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.
The standard is the same as the one public health officials have set in Canada and China where in September the problem of melamine in infant formula first surfaced. But it is 20 times higher than the most stringent level in Taiwan.
Sundlof said the lack of dual contamination was key because studies so far show dangerous health effects only when both chemicals are present. He emphasized that neither of the two tainted samples had both contaminants.
The agency still will not set a safety level for melamine if cyanuric acid is also present, he said.
Source: CNN.com
Sundlof said Friday that results from 74 of 87 samples of infant formula and other products babies and young children had been completed. The results of the other 13 are pending.That total differed slightly from the one the FDA offered Thursday, when its acting commissioner of public affairs, Judy Leon, told CNN that 77 sample results had been completed and just 10 were outstanding.
Among the 74 final test results discussed Friday, the FDA said, two samples of Nestle’s Good Start Supreme Infant Formula with Iron tested positive for melamine at levels of 137 and 140 parts per billion, well below the level of concern cited by Sundlof.
In addition, three samples of Mead Johnson’s infant powder, Enfamil LIPIL with Iron, tested positive for cyanuric acid at an average of 247 parts per billion, also well below the FDA trace level.
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