(Melamine Suspected) Chinese Officials Say Baby Formula Tied to Kidney Stones

[5CatMom]

Bart Stupak is from the upper peninsula of Michigan and I'm not thinking that there are too many "yuppers" here, but I could be wrong. The interesting thing is that he is not very well supported by his party machine here ~ maybe too much integrity?

I called Bart's office in Washington (202/225-4735), and told them we are monitoring the melamine recalls worldwide.  Have noticed that although the US imports un-inspected food ingredients from China, there've been no recalls of US foods.  This doesn't sound logical.

Also, we noticed food officials seem to be satisfied with "acceptable limits" and "allowable limits" for melamine.

5CatMom
₌^..^₌

[3catkidneyfailure]

Thank you, 5CatMom. Emails seem to be buried. I hope this gentleman contacts Representative DeLauro. An emergency
temporary ban to bail out our children is needed perhaps more than bailing out Wall Street.

[5CatMom]

3Cat,

The person I spoke with said that Bart's not done with the FDA  .

5CatMom
₌^..^₌

[purringfur]

The FDA is conspicuously absent in what it's doing/not doing in this ever-widening Chinese milk product poisoning.   

Is the FDA too busy testing the thousands and thousands of products in the U.S. that use milk or milk products from China to let American consumers know if the food is safe?  Is the "dilution factor" in play already so there's no need to test? 

Will it take private citizens sending products to labs?

3cat, very nice job on the list of 54 countries that have taken some action against the poisoned milk/milk products to protect their citizens.  Thanks for updating it.

What about Senator Dick Durbin?  I kind of liked his style of questioning during the hearings...   

[straybaby]

3Cat,

The person I spoke with said that Bart's not done with the FDA  .

5CatMom
₌^..^₌

lol!~ and neither are we! 

[straybaby]

What about Senator Dick Durbin?  I kind of liked his style of questioning during the hearings...   

We should flood the Durbin's senate committee (along with our own senators) with calls tomorrow as they will be done with their billion dollar bailout baby.

[menusux]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gW3afBtSK-HCW_uMqqEC9V2iELGgD93HTEL00

Associated Press October 1, 2008

Candy with chemical in Chinese milk found in Conn

"A chemical blamed for sickening infants in China has been found in candy on American shelves.

"Connecticut consumer protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr. said Wednesday that tests on White Rabbit Creamy Candy found melamine.

"The candy has been found in stores in Connecticut. It was imported from China and sold primarily at Asian markets.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended last week that consumers not eat White Rabbit candy and that retailers remove it. Queensway Foods Company Inc. of California distributed the candy and says it is recalling it."

[3catkidneyfailure]

What the heck?

http://www.icis.com/Articles/2007/11/30/9083219/asia-melamine-to-spike-in-q1-2008.html
Asia melamine to spike in Q1 2008
30 November 2007 03:31  [Source: ICIS news] By Helen Yan

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Japanese melamine producers are targeting a 15-20% hike to $1,500/tonne CFR (cost and freight) Asia for first quarter contracts in 2008 from the last three months this year amid short supply, a weak dollar and rising urea feedstock costs, producers and traders said on Thursday.
Delays in new melamine projects and plant closures in Europe and Asia amounting to more than 200,000 tonnes being taken out of the global melamine market in the past year have fuelled the recent price upswing, they added. ...

In China, several Chinese melamine plants including Fujian Petrochemical Group's Sanming Chemical and Shandong Haihua Kuixing Chemical had to shut down their facilities due to rising environmental concerns in China.
Poor margins in recent years also saw several plants in Europe and Asia shutting down their plants.
Europe's largest melamine producer, Agrolinz Melamine International (AMI), shut down its 50,000 tonne/year Castellanza plant in Italy in March this year.
In Asia, Mitsubishi Chemical closed down its 35,000 tonne/year melamine plant in Kashima in March while Samsung Fine Chemicals shut its 35,000 tonne/year plant in Ulsan, South Korea last year.
Another factor which contributed to the soaring prices was the reduction in the export tax rebate implemented by the Chinese authorities earlier this year in July.
In a bid to address the ballooning trade surplus with the West, the Chinese government slashed the export tax subsidies for a whole range of chemicals, including melamine.
The melamine export tax rebate was cut from 13% to 5%, prompting several Chinese melamine producers to withdraw exports and focus on the domestic market instead.

Chinese government cuts melamine export subsidy; ends up in domestic baby formula and animal feed and other Chinese food products for export?

[JustMe]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gW3afBtSK-HCW_uMqqEC9V2iELGgD93HTEL00

Associated Press October 1, 2008

Candy with chemical in Chinese milk found in Conn

Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection

White Rabbit Creamy Candy

"This says "tests by the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station Laboratory have determined that the product does contain melamine."

http://www.ct.gov/dcp/lib/dcp/pdf/2008_press_releases/whiterabbit2.pdf

[3catkidneyfailure]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10535081
Japanese dairy company asks hard questions
Wednesday Oct 01, 2008 By Lincoln Tan
Regulatory authorities were scrambling to set up melamine limits for dairy products, including 2.5 parts per million in Hong Kong and McGilvary understood the US was using 10 parts and China was thinking about five parts.

This might explain why the US is not finding melamine in places other countries are if 10 parts per million is the US standard.

[straybaby]

There shouldn't be ANY FREAKING MELAMINE IN DAIRY! or any other food for that matter. They are pretty much feeding us unregulated, and at times, scrap melamine. Have they tested how melamine reacts in the body with the toxic plastic containers and baby bottles chemicals? In fact, have they done ANY long term melamine studies?! OF COURSE THEY HAVEN'T!! Anyone who was following the live blogging last year saw how it went from zero amounts were acceptable, to that piece of crap risk assessment not long after.

Melamine is NOT a food ingredient. Melamine is PLATE material. How [edited] hard is it for our government to get this?!

[purringfur]

3cat, you are HOT in finding these articles!  You're on a roll.  Thank you!  (Well, I'm having one head explosion after another, so maybe thank you isn't quite the right phrase!)   

Huh?  The U.S. was thinking 10 parts and even China was thinking 5 parts?  It's like saying, "Send us ALL your poison!"  We're asking for it!   How about ZERO ppm?

Just saw your post, straybaby... Yeah, plate material and for Mr. Clean Magic Eraser cleaning sponges.

[3catkidneyfailure]

I've never been this angry and spending so much time looking because I feel my US government is not speaking and letting
us know what it is doing to protect our children. But everything posted here has to be read skeptically, since people
concerned with this situation are being left to speculate and hunt across the world wide web for information. I'm only
pretty sure the melamine risk assessment models from the 2007 pet food recalls are not adequate or long enough when
dealing with infants and babies. Also pretty sure China is not telling the truth with regards to numbers of children affected
seriously. And very sure I need my government to act decisively to protect first, then study and improve, and I'm not
seeing it so far.

[Nabiya]

Menusux:  You may want to consider changing the name of this topic since the melamine is no longer suspected.  If you change it to something like Melamine Contamination Found in Chinese/China Baby Formula and Other Foods Globally, the search engines will pick it up and people searching can find this topic on Itchmo then.

[shadowmice]

Received an email alert from the CFIA website: not on the CFIA site itself yet but found this copy:

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Canadian-Food-Inspection-Agency-905979.html

"The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Dai Jung Distributing are advising people not to consume the OK OK Kaiser pretzels described below. These products are being recalled due to a positive test result for melamine conducted by the CFIA."

Interesting thing I noticed here - it states melamine found in testing done by CFIA. Previous alerts did not explicitly state they had actually found any in their own testing; they seemed more like follow-ons to recalls initiated by other authorities.