Posted on 11/13/2008 7:24:48 PM PST by nickcarraway
Federal food safety officials yesterday began holding up shipments of food from China that contain milk or milk-derived ingredients in the largest effort to date to keep products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine from reaching U.S. consumers.
The Food and Drug Administration is requiring importers of the halted shipments to test for the chemical, which is used to make plastic and fertilizer but has been added to human and animal food to boost protein readings. The types of products likely to be waylaid are cookies, candies, and other goods made with milk or milk powder.
If an importer can prove his product is not tainted, FDA will release it, said Steve Solomon, the agency's deputy associate commissioner for compliance and policy. The agency also will step up its testing of products already on the market.
FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt are scheduled to travel to China next week to meet with food safety officials there about melamine and other issues, and to open FDA offices in three Chinese cities.
Since September, FDA officials have recalled several products -- sold mainly in ethnic grocery stores -- due to possible melamine contamination. They chose to take broader measures yesterday based on the results of product testing and on information from food safety officials in other countries.
"We're taking regulatory action to make sure we're controlling these products," Solomon said. Consuming large amounts can lead to kidney stones and even death.
FDA officials said they were taking action despite the small likelihood that melamine in processed foods is harmful, as was the case with infant formula in China. At least four infants have died and tens of thousands more have become sick. "The finished product is not going to cause the same adverse affects,"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ping
no more Moooo goo gai pan?
BTTT
Why are we importing food from China anyway? Have we lost the ability to feed our own?
About a month back a truck was stopped here in Michigan. Among the violations, the refrigerated truck was carrying meat at above 65 degrees and was carrying some type of cookies that were banned for melamine.
It was coming from a resturant in Chicago and heading for Lansing and on to Detroit.
....and I think it stopped at a Chinese restaurant in Toledo on the way.
(JUST KIDDING...)
Ah, free trade.
No costs to it whatsoever, apart from making Chicoms rich and flooding markets with poisoned products.
ping
Next thing they’ll block grape kool-aid from the Jim Jones ranch....
< / barn door>
Hell, the FDA could just turn a negative into a positive, slap a neat sticker on each gallon: “Now with Melamine!” and be done with it.
What this may well mean, is that the Chinese melamine toxin has been in some of the food you and I ate in the past several months!?
Hello, US government and citizens, even a little of this in my families food is really out there. Unacceptable duh.
About damn time !!!!!!!!
Gonna make that holiday food shopping at Costco difficult if Chinese garbage isn’t allowed!
Rats. Now it looks like I'll have to go to Mongolia to get Kumiss! ( fermented mares milk.)
How many things can you put melamine in? I really don’t understand the constant use of this chemical in food.
A trader Joe’s just opened up here.
With all the cows here, why the hell do we need chicom milk??
No Chineeezzz Fud!!!...:0(
FYI:
To identify Chinese made products, look at the bar code on the product. The numbers below the bar code are what you are interested in.
Products from PRC run from 690-695 (first three numbers from the left).
They’ve gotten lax in labling the origin of a product as of late. IIRC, that is federal law.
Trader Joe’s is terrific.
Bump.
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