Thread: US Import Alert On China Foods Melamine Contamination Updat

US Import Alert On China Foods Melamine Contamination Update

From Patricia Doyle, PhD
11-17-8

I have a question. How does the average American, such as myself, KNOW which foods contain any milk or milk products from China? How are we supposed to know which companies use such imported products in the product they produce?

Next Question: When is the US going to STOP importing food stuffs from China?

Let's see if I can answer both questions.

#1 - We don't know.

and #2 - Never!

I have been hearing a lot about 'Change' these days, so how about 'Change' regarding food imports in the form of produce, meat and ingredient imports such as milk and milk products from China.

Time to take China off our dinner plates.

Patty

US Import Alert On China Food
By Jonathan Beale BBC News (Edited)

US authorities have issued a nationwide "import alert" for Chinese-made food products in the wake of the melamine contamination scandal. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had already issued an alert warning Americans not to consume Chinese products containing milk. Thousands of Chinese have been poisoned this year.

The latest alert goes beyond dairy products to such items as drinks, sweets, and baby and pet food. It also allows US inspectors to seize any Chinese products suspected of being contaminated.

Safety issues

The earlier restrictions were put in place on diary products after 4 Chinese children died from kidney failure and thousands more people fell ill after consuming dairy products laced with melamine, which is normally used in making plastics and fertiliser.

The FDA has now added more than a dozen other goods imported from China, including biscuits, instant coffee and tea products.

In addition, US officials will be travelling to China next week for consultations with the Chinese about safety issues. The FDA is also planning to open three new offices in China to check products intended for the US market.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7728605.stm

US Issues Melamine Alert On All Chinese Made Food Products

(AFP) -- US authorities Thursday (13 Nov 200 issued a nationwide "import alert" for Chinese-made food products for possible melamine contamination and warned against consuming several products from China including infant formula. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it had an alert in place since 10 Oct 2008 for specific imports containing milk but that new data indicated that "a countrywide import alert is warranted."

The FDA said it would test "a range of protein-containing products beyond just dairy and dairy-containing products" for contamination and would "take appropriate regulatory action" if needed. The import alert covers a range of products including beverages, candy, baby food and pet foods. It allows inspectors to seize any products suspected of being contaminated.

At the same time, the FDA warned against consuming an infant formula manufactured in China as well as more than a dozen products including biscuit, instant coffee and tea products.

At least 4 children have died of kidney failure and 53 000 have fallen ill in China this year after drinking milk or consuming dairy products laced with melamine, which is usually used in making plastics and fertilizers. The dairy scandal has expanded worldwide with several governments recalling or banning Chinese products with milk content.

In a related matter, the US government said FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt will travel to China next week "for consultations with their Chinese counterparts" on safety issues and to open 3 new FDA offices in China.

The visit is "part of an ongoing strategy to address the food safety issues in both countries and to share ideas to address global food safety," a statement from Leavitt's office said.

"This will include a discussion of the recent outbreak of foodborne illness in the United States related to fresh produce as well as the melamine contamination of dairy products in China," the statement said.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jzX ... aZxACdGDOw

Communicated by ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall

Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin,
Tropical Agricultural Economics Univ of
West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
Also my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health

http://www.rense.com/general84/imp.htm

November 17, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Our Home-Grown Melamine Problem
By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
Austin, Tex.

CHINA’S food supply appears to be awash in the industrial chemical melamine. Dangerous levels have been detected not only in milk and eggs, but also in chicken feed and wheat gluten, meaning that melamine is almost impossible to avoid in processed foods. Melamine in baby formula has killed at least four infants in China and sickened tens of thousands more.

In response, the United States has blasted lax Chinese regulations, while the Food and Drug Administration, in a rare move, announced last week that Chinese food products containing milk would be detained at the border until they were proved safe.

For all the outrage about Chinese melamine, what American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is how much melamine has pervaded our own food system. In casting stones, we’ve forgotten that our own house has more than its share of exposed glass.

To be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits. Makers of baby formula, for example, watered down their product, lowering the amount of protein and nutrients, then added melamine, which is cheap and fools tests measuring protein levels.

But melamine is also integral to the material life of any industrialized society. It’s a common ingredient in cleaning products, waterproof plywood, plastic compounds, cement, ink and fire-retardant paint. Chemical plants throughout the United States produce millions of pounds of melamine a year.

Given the pervasiveness of melamine, it’s always possible that trace elements will end up in food. The F.D.A. thus sets the legal limit for melamine in food at 2.5 parts per million. This amount is indeed minuscule, a couple of sand grains in an expanse of desert that pose no real threat to public health. Moreover, the 2.5 p.p.m. figure is calculated for a person weighing 132 pounds — a cautious benchmark given that the average adult weighs 150 to 180 pounds.

But these figures obscure more than they reveal. First, while adults eat about one-fortieth of their weight every day, toddlers consume closer to one-tenth. Although scientists haven’t measured the differential impact of melamine on infants versus adults, it’s likely that this intensified ratio would at least double (if not quadruple) the impact of legal levels of melamine on toddlers.

This doubled exposure might not land a child in the hospital, but it could certainly contribute to the long-term kidney and liver problems that we know are caused by chronic exposure to melamine.

On a more concrete note, melamine not only has widespread industrial applications, but is also used to buttress the foundation of American agriculture.

Fertilizer companies commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck. But the government doesn’t regulate how much melamine is applied to the soil. This melamine accumulates as salt crystals in the ground, tainting the soil through which American food sucks up American nutrients.

A related area of agricultural concern is animal feed. Chinese eggs seized last month in Hong Kong, for instance, contained elevated levels of melamine because of the melamine-laden wheat gluten used in the feed for the chickens that produced the eggs.

To think American consumers are immune to this unscrupulous behavior is to ignore the Byzantine reality of the global gluten trade. Tracking the flow of wheat gluten around the world, much less evaluating its quality, is like trying to contain a drop of dye in a churning whirlpool.

More ominous, the United States imports most of its wheat gluten. Last year, for instance, the F.D.A. reported that millions of Americans had eaten chicken fattened on feed with melamine-tainted gluten imported from China. Around the same time, Tyson Foods slaughtered and processed hogs that had eaten melamine-contaminated feed. The government decided not to recall the meat.

Only a week earlier, however, the F.D.A. had announced that thousands of cats and dogs had died from melamine-laden pet food. This high-profile pet scandal did not prove to be a spur to reform so much as a red herring. Our attention was diverted to Fido and away from the animals we happen to kill and eat rather than spoil.

Frightening as this all sounds, the concerned consumer is not completely helpless. We can seek out organic foods, which are grown with fertilizer without melamine — unless that fertilizer was composted with manure from animals fed melamine-laden feed (always possible, as the Tyson example suggests).

We could further protect ourselves by choosing meat from grass-fed or truly free-range animals, assuming the grass was not fertilized with a conventional product (something that’s also very hard to know).

But as all the caveats above indicate, these precautions will only go so far. Melamine, after all, points to the much larger relationship between industrial waste and American food production. Regulations might be lax when it comes to animal feed and fertilizer in China, but take a closer look at similar regulations in the United States and it becomes clear that they’re vague enough to allow industries to “recycleâ€