Industrial Chemicals and Infant Baby Formula
This past Friday, FDA officials stated that less than 1 part per million of the industrial chemical melamine found in infant baby formula is safe. This announcement came after trace amounts of the industrial chemical were found in U.S. formula, and it came two months after 50,000 infants were sickened in China from large amounts of it being put directly into milk.
The FDA had previously not set a safety limit.
Doing so now, with no recent research to back this conclusion, makes no sense.
While I don’t think the amounts found in the U.S. should be sufficient to scare mothers away from formula (esp. those who aren’t able to breast feed), I am very concerned about the FDA’s continued inability to properly police our food. Also, the precedent of allowing ANY amount of this chemical to reside in our food is wrong.
- What is melamine? Melamine is a white powder used in plastic-making. It was first synthesized by a German scientist in the 1830s. Its most common form is melamine resine, a mix with formaldehyde, where it used in the manufacture of formica, floor tiles, whiteboards, and kitchenware. Adding melmine to watered-down milk makes its protein level appear higher because it is high in nitrogen. Criminal merchants use this process to fool inspectors.
- Why the concern? Melamine can be harmful. Since it was discovered in infant formula in September in Asia, more than 50,000 infants have been sickened and 4 have died. It has been tested in animals in small amounts and found not to be toxic. But in high amounts it can be toxic to the kidneys and urinary tract, causing stones and blocking ducts, manifesting with bloody urine, especially when it mixes with another cheaper chemical, cyanuric acid. Cyanuric acid (a chemical stabilizer in swimming pools) is also used to falsely raise protein content in milk and infant formula, to make them look protein rich.
- Should parents be alarmed? Parents should always be cautious, but the chances of currently available formula causing a problem in your infants is very low.
- What should the FDA do? The melamine problem is a wake-up call to the FDA to set more precise standards and to back them up with increased regulation of products, esp. those coming into the U.S. from other countries. With our current economic troubles, it would be nice to see domestic production favored, especially when the chances of a toxic chemical originating here and going undetected is far less likely. The melamine-contaminated infant formula now found in the U.S. likely originates from a powdered milk ingredient from Asia.
- Is the FDA effective? Keep in mind that there is no real purpose whatsoever to have melamine in food except to fool inspectors. The FDA has been inconsistent and ineffective on melamine risk. The agency needs more teeth – more regulatory power and a larger staff to implement it.
Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a FOX News Medical Contributor and writes a health column for LA Times, where he examines TV and movies for medical accuracy. Dr. Siegel is the author of “False Alarm: the Truth About the Epidemic of Fear” and “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic”. Read more at www.doctorsiegel.com
Tags: baby formula, Dr. Marc Siegel, FDA, industrial chemical, melamine
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Parents should be concerned about the cumulative exposure to melamine their young children and infants are exposed to, since potentially ANY food with a high protein content may be contaminated with melamine:
“In addition, it would be useful for manufacturers to be alert to the possibility that non-milk-derived ingredients from China that are or may be sold on the basis of protein content, such as soy protein, also could be contaminated with melamine.”
-FDA, in its “Dear Colleague” letter to food manufacturers.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/melamltr.html
I am totally shocked that someone at Fox News is advocating yet more burdensome government regulations for a problem like melamine. Obviously this problem can be easily be solved by consumers avoiding products that contain melamine. To help out consumer determine what products are safe, industry can sell consumers home testing kits for melamine. Government is not the solution, it’s the problem!
Melamine was also the culprit in the big pet food recall in March of 2007. FDA investigation identified melamine as the “toxin” found in the pet foods which sickened and killed many pets.
They also traced this melamine back to the wheat gluten source imported from China.
Dear Shocked – Are you the parent of an infant? I’m going to go with “no” since your main concern here seems to be burdening the government with more regulation. I, on the other hand, am a parent of a 10-month old and I have been feeding my baby the top-of-the-line formula available on the market since at 2 weeks old he was not gaining enough weight by breast feeding alone. That top-of-the-line formula brand happens to be one of the one’s I just discovered has “trace” amounts of melanine. I have been unknowingly poisoning my baby for 10 months! I have been doing everything I know how to give him the healthiest diet I can – and yet I was being fooled! How many parts-per-million do you feel comfortabe giving your baby when you’re feeding him 1/4 of his body weight in formula each day? Absolutely, it is up to the consumer to protect themselves – and I have now switched to an “off brand” which ironically hasn’t been named as one of the culprits YET. But how can I as a consumer protect myself – or my baby – if I have no idea what chemicals are going into his formula?!? I guess that makes me naive that I rely on the list of INGREDIENTS rather than having some sort of psychic ability to know what other crap is going in there. Also, I am 100% with Dr. Seigal on this observation – how absolutely CARELESS of the FDA to ARBITRARILY decide how many parts per million of poison is okay to feed my son! What research do they have to support this? I’m completely appalled!
This is another reason that more and more mothers are breastfeeding their babies. We can go over board on how much we want the goverment to regulate our lives. They need to put all the indigridents on the bottles of formula like they do with all other foods. We need someone to watch how many chemicals they put in our babies formula. We need someone to be held legealy accountable. If the manfuactures faced jail time maybe they would be more careful of what is in the formula we are feeding to our babies.