FDA Announces "Countrywide Import Alert"

The FDA announced today that they will be blocking imports of Chinese dairy products, and food and feed products manufactured in China that contain dairy ingredients. This countrywide alert is welcomed news.

It is also good news that the "additional information" the FDA received about the scope of the melamine contamination will compel them to examine non-dairy items as well. While testing of food and feed that contains dairy from China has been the most recent focus, non-dairy ingredients from China such as wheat products, rice protein and vegetable proteins were found to be contaminated with melamine last year (pet food) and recent reports from Hong Kong indicate that Chinese animal feed (hen, fish) have been found to contain melamine as recently as last week. This indicates that the "scope" of the contamination goes beyond dairy. And beyond China. Hopefully the FDA is aware of this and will consider a wider alert that leads to better food safety and more informed consumers. Below is the update from the FDA website, Melamine section:

Update on FDA’s Investigation
November 13, 2008: As part of its ongoing strategy to address the present problem with melamine contamination of consumer products exported from the People’s Republic of China, FDA has expanded its import controls on Chinese dairy products, and food and feed products manufactured in China that contain dairy ingredients. Since Oct. 10, 2008, FDA has had an import alert in place for specific products found contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds. FDA has collected additional information on the scope of the melamine contamination problem in China, and determined a countrywide import alert is warranted.
This action will help ensure that only Chinese dairy products and food and feed products manufactured in China that contain dairy ingredients are not contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds reach U.S. consumers. No adverse health effects have been reported in the United States from contamination with melamine of dairy products or dairy containing products. But melamine is not approved for direct addition to human or animal foods and no manufacturer is allowed to deliberately add it to any food for U.S. consumers.
As part of ongoing activities, FDA will also examine a range of protein-containing products beyond just dairy and dairy-containing products for contamination with melamine and melamine-related compounds. FDA will continue to take appropriate regulatory action if these efforts uncover additional contamination.

FDA’s Warnings/Advisories
The FDA is advising consumers not to consume the following products because of possible melamine contamination:
Fresh and Crispy Jacobina Biscuits New!
Koala’s March Crème filled Cookies
YILI Brand Sour Milk Drink
YILI Brand Pure Milk Drink
Blue Cat Flavored Drinks
White Rabbit Candies
Mr. Brown Mandehling Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Arabica Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Blue Mountain Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Caramel Macchiato Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown French Vanilla Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Mandheling Blend instant Coffee (2-in-1)
Mr. Brown Milk Tea (3-in-1)
Infant formula manufactured in China

Next: Protein Powder

Being suspicious of protein ingredients is not new. Taiwan is now banning import of protein ingredients from China. Are protein ingredients next up to be banned around the world? Will U.S. agencies take a look at protein ingredients imported into the U.S.?

Just as I was reading the article about the protein ingredients in Taiwan, Jenny from General Mills called me back. She wanted me to hear General Mills statement about ingredients from China. She said that General Mills does not import any milk or milk derived products from China. Interestingly she added that General Mills does not use any protein ingredients from China. I asked her about eggs, and while she did not look it up, she assured me that no protein ingredients also meant no eggs or egg products. She said that some General Mills products sold in the U.S. are manufactured in facilities in other countries. She said if the facility used to manufacture the product is outside of the U.S., then the packaging will say what country it was made in.

Test Our Eggs, Please

We need to test the quality of the eggs produced around the U.S. to help ensure the good health of residents. Especially since eggs produced in China and tested in Hong Kong have been found to contain high levels of melamine. This implies that perhaps melamine has contaminated many more products originating from China than previously thought.

I recently spoke with someone at Organic Valley about their eggs (no melamine in their feed, he assured me) and adding melamine to animal feed for chickens. The OV rep said it was very smart to be inquiring about who uses melamine in their animal feed here in the U.S.  

As far as imports are concerned: so we don't import any milk from China... Well, do we import eggs? If so, where are they sold or used? 

Kidney Disease on the Rise

There is a study by the National Institutes of Health reporting findings of a 30% increase in chronic kidney disease over the past decade.

Is it possible that ingesting even low levels of melamine over a decade or so has caused this increase? It's been two years since thousands of pets died from eating pet food tainted with melamine. Melamine is still being added to animal feed and is a part of the human food chain in products like milk, yogurt as well as raw ingredients like vegetable proteins added to our processed foods. No regulating agencies or food manufacturers can really say (if they know they aren't saying) how long melamine has been used in raw food ingredients. Some research indicates that it has been going on for quite a long time; perhaps many decades. It is more commonly used now? And in higher levels?

The FDA is asking manufacturers to do their own testing; they can test some products but don't have the resources to do it all themselves. Despite this, we are not hearing anything about such testing from food manufacturing companies. We are not even hearing about results that prove that low or no levels of melamine were present in foods. If I had a company that used milk protein concentrate, vegetable proteins such as soy or wheat gluten or corn protein, I would be shouting from the rooftops that my product is free and clear of melamine. Just wondering...

Lawsuit: Chinese Milk Manufacturer and U.S. Subsidiary

Chinese families affected by the tainted milk scandal have taken action to sue a milk manufacturer in China and are including a U.S. (Delaware) investment subsidiary of the manufacturer.

China is Third Biggest Supplier to U.S.

David Lazarus of the L.A. Times echoing the sentiment that the FDA is probably too lax in their enforcement, oversight and testing of food products that could possibly contain melamine in the U.S.  

Melamine Will Fix It

This article (on page two) does a good job of summing up how some food producers feel compelled to add melamine over and over, from farm to manufacture, to their products.  

What's going on here?

Instead of destroying containers of melamine-laden milk in China, AFP is reporting that the milk was turning up for sale at universities. What in the world? The Wall Street Journal has more about it here.

More Milk and Dairy Recalls - China

There are new reports of more milk and dairy recalls in China.

FDA wants food industry to get busy

The FDA has been updating their website a lot in the past week. There is now a link that will bring you directly to a "Melamine Information" hub. From there, readers can click on a variety of links. Scroll way down the the bottom of the page and you'll find this link to a "Dear Colleague" letter designed to be read (hopefully distributed in some other fashion as well) by the U.S. Food Manufacturing Industry. It states what the public, politicians, and many resourceful bloggers, have been talking about since pet food in the U.S. was discovered to be contaminated with melamine. Three following bullet points, and the sentence that follows, highlight the concerns of the FDA: 

- Know the precise origin of each milk-derived ingredient. For example, milk-derived ingredients that are sourced from countries other than China could actually originate from China.
- Determine that milk-derived ingredients originating from China are free of melamine and its analogues prior to usage.
- For food manufactured in the last twelve months which might still be on the shelf at retail or in stock elsewhere, determine whether the food might contain any milk-derived ingredients from China. If any such foods exist, verify that they do not contain melamine or its analogues.

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.

That last statement points out just how really large this problem is. We know that last year vegetable proteins from China destined as raw ingredients for processed foods for animals and humans were imported into the U.S. The FDA was not able to halt all of these shipments and from what I can tell, the FDA is now recognizing that the tainted vegetable proteins are in our food supply - in foods processed as far back as twelve months ago. That could be breakfast cereals, dry soup mixes,  candy and so on. I assume the FDA could not recall all the shipments last year - not enough resources. Are we lab rats? Is it part of the process that the FDA is using to come up with the 2.5 parts per million level of melamine that they find acceptable in food> For example, determine if that company imports vegetable protein from China for their soup mix, test it for melamine and get results, have there been any reports of illnesses from consuming that food over the last twelve months, and so on.

But this letter is also interesting because it is a request for manufacturers here in the U.S. to inspect their product for milk ingredients too. Again, the FDA doesn't have enough resources to do it all, the scope of what the FDA deals with is so broad, and that is a shame. The Hong Kong test results mentioned in my other post reveal some of the companies that must be getting some milk ingredients from China. Are these companies and others not on the list really going to step up (or just begin) this process to test here in the U.S. and if so will the public hear the results?

Blogging About Melamine

Being sort of new to this whole blog thing and feeling like I can't get my thoughts to the keyboard fast enough, I'm going to send you over here for a few thoughtful comments.