FDA to add melamine to food pyramid
By Christie Keith
October 9, 2008
I stole that snarky headline verbatim from Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), who issued a media release last Friday in response to the FDA’s statement that a little bit o’ melamine wouldn’t hurt ya any:
While other countries throughout the world, including the European Union, are acting to ban melamine-contaminated products from China, the FDA has chosen to establish an acceptable level for melamine in food in an attempt to convince consumers that it is not harmful. Not only is this is an insult to consumers, but it would appear that the FDA is condoning the intentional contamination of foods.
By not insisting on a zero-tolerance policy with melamine, the FDA is failing to protect consumers, and the agency is undercutting the hard work being done on the state level.
[....]
I would be very interested in learning from the agency about the detailed scientific data it used to justify this action and intend to press the FDA for this information.
Once again, the FDA is failing to act to increase inspections and remove contaminated products from store shelves. And once again, the FDA is demonstrating that the Congress has significant work ahead if it is to pass legislation that reforms the food safety system and changes the culture at an agency that is failing to protect the public from potential health risks.
I’ll never forget my shock when the FDA did its interim safety analysis (which as far as I know was never updated) during the pet food recall last year, after melamine turned out to have found its way into livestock food and then into, you know… our food. They said then that a little bit of melamine wouldn’t do you any harm, based on what looked like a lot of assumptions and guesswork.
And here we are today, with more melamine in more places, and the FDA not only isn’t sounding a warning siren, they’re patting us on the head and telling us not to worry.
I suppose that’s what the Chinese government is telling the parents of those sick and dead babies in China, too. Heckuva job, FDA.
Looks like we are going to have to rely on our states banning it from food. I do know our state AG dept is pulling and testing, I just hope they aren’t listening to the multi-national producers who are saying everything’s fine, nothing to see here, move along.
Apparently Chinese grown veggies are showing up contaminated with melamine now too in countries that are expanding their testing.
The levels they are finding far exceed the risk assumption in enough cases, that’s it’s pretty darn risky to eat anything but local organic whole foods. Imo of course.
Sen Clinton has proposed COOL for dairy ingredients. Apparently, dairy wasn’t on the original list.
http://www.senate.gov/~clinton.....;&
Comment by straybaby — October 9, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
I cannot believe this report. Melamine is acceptable in small amounts? Should we add arsenic, too. How about a little glue?
I guess anything goes. Survival of the fittest, and if your body cannot take, tough luck. The trouble is sometimes I give human food to my cats.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — October 9, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
http://www.nih.gov/news/health.....ddk-08.htm
Annual Report Targets Chronic Kidney Disease in the United States
A 30 percent increase in chronic kidney disease over the past decade has prompted the U.S. Renal Data System (USRDS) to issue for the first time a separate report documenting the magnitude of the disease, which affects an estimated 27 million Americans and accounts for more than 24 percent of Medicare costs.
Maybe the FDA should start asking questions
about what melamine is doing to the entire
population of the USA.
Comment by 3catkidneyfailure — October 9, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
I love your headline, Christie!
We all know how harmless melamine was to our pets last year (mine died)…so what’s the worry?
I guess that the FDA wants us to “eat, drink, and be merry…?”
I won’t write the rest of that phrase.
Comment by Marcy — October 9, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
The FDA is allowing melamine, in acceptable(!!??) amounts, to be an ingredient of our foods. I personally would opt to see it listed as an ingredient, if it’s in the food, on the label of the food with the actual percentage noted, to insure that I don’t ingest more than an acceptable amount in a given day…as I drink my milk based drink, snack on candy, and munch on vegetables with melamine residue. Consider an accumulative affect if it’s in more than one food eaten in a given day. Scary.
During the pet food recall, I believe I read the actual percentage of melamine that was in a bag of dog food that caused the death of a 120 pound dog. I think that info was in a blog on this site. Was it .006 parts? Does anyone recall? Thanks! Laura
Comment by Laura Gould — October 10, 2008 @ 4:22 am
Last night I read a report from Consumers Union stating “FDA is opening way for grocery stores to sell food made from genetically engineered animals and the agency is proposing these products be sold without your knowledge. Genetically engineered animals are not a far off exotic concept. It’s happening now. Goats engineered with spider genes to produce silk in their milk. Pigs carry mouse and bacterial DNA to improve their digestion”. Consumers Reports is asking people to sign a petition by Nov 18 to tell FDA we want to know what’s in our food.
Who would have ever imagined we humans would be living at a time as frightening as this. Bet even the science-fiction writers could not think of plots like this.
Comment by VJ — October 10, 2008 @ 4:28 am
Here’s the link for an “updated” interim safety analysis..wish I could post an emoticon to show my opinion of it….but … here is a link to let the good ole FDA head know it’s time to do something…anything…
http://action.foodandwaterwatc....._KEY=26056
Comment by Carol V — October 10, 2008 @ 5:00 am
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/melamra3.html
oops…forgot to post the link above….need coffee…
Comment by Carol V — October 10, 2008 @ 5:01 am
Here are some recent posts of mine quoting relevant information from Marion Nestle’s book, “Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine”:
http://www.petconnection.com/b.....ent-355267
http://www.petconnection.com/b.....ent-355394
http://www.petconnection.com/b.....ent-357034
Comment by The OTHER Pat — October 10, 2008 @ 6:23 am
I forget if I already posted this here but…I had emailed Dr Rumbeiha this Tuesday asking his opinion of the melamilk crisis and why is only melamine being talked about contrary to what he reported last year regarding the deadly combo of cyanuric acid and melamine and he emailed me back saying the the “Food Response Network” was activated last week to look for more than melamine. I had been in email contact with him last year as he had expressed interest in long term studies of the MARF survivors and had talked to him about my two (now one) survivior. Tuesday he also said that he never received funding for the long term studies but was still very interested in that. It is too bad that was not initiated as I am sure there are alot of parents in China right now wanting to know the long term problems if they happened to be one of the fortunate and have their child survive…
ps…I had to google Food Response Network to see what he was referring to….
Comment by Carol V — October 10, 2008 @ 7:56 am
With a government like ours,
Who needs enemies?
Comment by Janeen — October 10, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
What government?
Comment by Christie Keith — October 10, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Hey, it’s too bad melamine doesn’t get you HIGH. I’ll bet that *if* it did - the Feds would outlaw the ingestion or possession of even small quantities of it regardless of its health effects.
Kinda makes you wonder about their priorities, doesn’t it?
Comment by Janeen — October 10, 2008 @ 6:17 pm