milk

With the advent of 2009, one could only hope that some of the mistakes and scandals that haunted us in 2008 would somehow die out. Unfortunately that has not been the case with melamine, with thousands of children still sick, more products being put on the contaminated list, and with Chinese authorities trying to limit press coverage by detaining parents hoping to speak with the media. At least the trials of Chinese milk producers are now finally underway – which has led to new discoveries of how deep the melamine corruption spreads.  

The trial is showing that some dairy producers knew about the tainted milk before the scandal became public up to months in advance, and yet delayed informing the authorities. Specifically, the former chairwoman of Sanlu, Ms. Tian Wenhau, recently admitted that she knew in May 2008 of the use of melamine at her company, though authorities were only informed in August. This makes her, among others, directly responsible for all of the children who either became ill or died. Noticeably, family members of the sick children have not been allowed to attend the trial – which seems wildly inappropriate, given what they have been forced to undergo.

And now it does not fall just on the Food and Drug Administration, but also on the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to really pick up the pace on the inspection front. Only last month did USDA announce that they were going to start inspecting meat products for melamine. Like FDA, they seem to have taken their time in realizing that there might actually be a problem – which could have disastrous results, especially if this level of corruption in the dairy industry is any indication of what might be going on in other areas of Chinese food production.

To add fuel to the fire, it appears that seafood may very well be next on the melamine list – and yet nothing is being done about it by U.S. government agencies. Research is also showing that fish cannot get rid of melamine as easily as cows or pigs can, and as a result their edible flesh contains high amounts of the contaminant. USDA has yet to respond – and as it relies on exporting countries to do most of its testing, while only doing its own testing on a small percentage of imports, then tainted fish are very likely to fall through the cracks. Hardly an adequate system.

To give yet another example where U.S. agencies have dropped the ball on the melamine front, FDA just issued yesterday a press release concerning the recall of Topaz brand Wafer Rolls because they were found to contain melamine. The problem? FDA’s press release was posted 17 days after the company that produces the rolls, National Brands Inc., sent out their release on the issue. Talk about a delayed reaction!

Let’s not allow 2009 to be characterized by the same inadequacies, fraud, and neglect in food safety that 2008 was fraught with. Rather, it’s time to really call upon our government agencies to tighten up their food inspection standards so as to prevent this problem from jumping the pond into our home territory – any more than it already has. 

- Sofía Baliño

Since it’s that time of year to spread the holiday cheer,
What better way than to reproach FDA for having food safety regs disappear.
From melamine to mercury, consumers are kept on their toes,
About what next food will be contaminated with what? Who knows?!
Now is the time to give FDA a gift to remind them of what they let pass,
Through to the market, to grocery shelves, and onto consumers’ plates, alas!
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After a year of what could be described as one of the worst in terms of food safety debacles, we felt inspired to not only rhyme, but also think about what we would give to FDA as a holiday gift – if we could. A food gift basket would be appropriate, especially because of all the “goodies” we could choose from this year alone.  Cookies contaminated with melamine? Check. Jalapeños and peppers from Mexico? Check. And thanks to the latest news about fish with mercury, how about some canned tuna? Check!
Come to think of it, we could put together an entire holiday meal from all of the treats we could put in our basket. Now there’s a thought! Let’s take it from the top…

First off, we need hors d’ouevres. Listeria-style cheese and crackers should be a good way to kick off a meal. Once that’s been digested, then of course it’ll be time for a good salad… made with irradiated iceberg lettuce.
Now, on to the entrées! We could include in the basket some ground beef made from cloned cows, so that FDA can grill some burgers in their backyard. They could even sprinkle on some bacteriophages, just to spice things up a bit.

Make sure that beef has been treated with carbon monoxide! Otherwise people might actually begin to suspect that the meat is really twelve weeks old. If the burger seems a little bare, you can always include in the basket a jar of salmonella-laced jalapeños, for good measure.

For the seafood lovers out there, we can prepare a mercury-spiked tuna casserole from the canned tuna we mentioned earlier. And for anyone who’s still hungry after all that, then maybe we could add in some ready-made pork chops made from pigs treated with cephalosporin. After all, FDA seems to have forgotten that they themselves deemed such antibiotics a “public health risk” last July.

For dessert? Some melamine-enriched cookies should be easy to find – after all, they did find some on New York shelves just last week. And for the kids? Well, there are always bottles of baby formula, tainted with BPA. Voila! FDA, your meal is served. 

The list of FDA failings unfortunately goes on…
If you could add to our gift basket, what would you send?

- Erin Greenfield and Sofía Baliño

The Food and Drug Administration has finally decided to come to terms with the fact that melamine is something of a problem. As of last week, all dairy products have been banned from China unless an importer can prove the products are free of melamine contamination. While being a step in the right direction, this is clearly another example of too little, too late. The ban should have been imposed ages ago – and it does not cover all of the products that have been shown to be contaminated with melamine, such as the eggs found in Hong Kong. Nor does it address the possibility that meat, pork, and chicken may soon be added to that list due to livestock being fed contaminated feed.

FDA claims that it has been aware of the contaminated milk-related illnesses in China back in September 2008 – which was two months after the first cases were reported and receiving international attention. Instead of instituting a ban in September, however, they imposed some arbitrary standard for a safe level of melamine – which allowed unsafe products to still make it onto U.S. grocery shelves. Only now have they begun to do something – and yet it still is not enough, and only barely begins to address the problem. Which begs the question – how much more melamine will it take for the FDA to actually do its job?

This week FDA announced that it was opening three offices in China – which would be their first ever foreign offices.  However, this appears to be more of a business/public relations move than a food safety one, one which will garner much media attention but actually accomplish little – especially considering how we import $4 billion in food products from China every year, and are only sending a limited amount of staff.

All this goes to show is that the further we delve into this melamine scandal, the more there appears to be no end in sight, and all because the international community chose to look the other way. With all the negative attention that China is receiving for this melamine scandal, China has now decided to strike back and call out other countries for their own food safety failings. Specifically, Chinese authorities have begun to call out imports from Australia, the U.S., the U.K., and Argentina, for not meeting food quality standards – in most cases reporting findings of bacteria levels that are higher than the approved standard. Yet these countries have not received nearly the same level of backlash from the international community. Clearly China is not the only country that needs to push the envelope further and ensure the safety and quality of the products they export – and import.

- Sofía Baliño

"a last-minute assault on the public happening on multiple fronts," is how Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, referred to the administration's final deregulation efforts.

During their last days in power, President Bush and his administration are  evidently uninterested in improving their image or even maintaining it. It seemed fathomable, after multiple indications of failure, that the administration would acknowledge the incompetence of its deregulatory doctrine and, like the public, accept the need for regulation.

Unfortunately, that's nowhere near the case. Instead, they've decided to blatantly ignore consumer interest and have one last push at passing rules to further weaken our health, safety, and environmental protections.

Like frat boys ending a party at full drunken force, it looks like they are rushing to do as much as damage in as little time as they can. Perhaps they have learned something in the course of their eight years of experience – they’re attempting to set these policies up in a way that will make it difficult for the incoming administration to reverse them. If they pass a rule by December 22nd and it takes effect before Inauguration Day, the new administration will not be able to revoke it without creating a new rule, which often takes months.

In the coming weeks, Food & Water Watch will be working hard to minimize the damage the administration is expected to inflict on the public and the environment. Stay tuned for opportunities to help and take action on one important issue now: urge the USDA to protect our food labels.

–Elissar Khalek
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Over the past several weeks, melamine has become a household name. It seems that not a day goes by without another product being recalled or suspected of contamination. All this begs the question, how did this not get discovered sooner? How did the range of products involved become so vast? Clearly China is going to have to do some fancy footwork to redeem their products in the eyes of the world. And the world must learn to respond quicker.

Recently 1,500 dogs bred for their raccoon-like fur died from eating melamine-tainted feed, leading to the development of kidney stones. All in one village. Yet this was not a first – last year, melamine-contaminated wheat gluten, a pet food ingredient made in China, caused dozens of dogs and cats in North America. Why was nothing done then?

Weeks after the food recalls in the U.S. began, Koala’s March cookies containing melamine were found on shelves in Connecticut. In Canada, Sherwood Brands Pirate’s Gold Milk Chocolate Coins were also found to have more than the supposedly “acceptable” level of melamine. Again, questions arise about our food inspection standards, and the production standards of China.

Every time we think we’ve heard the end of it, it seems that another products is discovered that has slipped through the cracks. And this isn’t just a U.S. problem or FDA failing – it’s an international issue. Australia had to order a recall of a milk drink and cake brand after tests showed melamine. Britain’s sex shop chain Ann Summers had to suspend sale of their “I Love You” sets of chocolate body spread for the same reasons. It almost makes you wonder what isn’t contaminated by melamine. It seems to be everywhere. And the potential consequences are anything but trivial, as shown by the thousands of babies that were sickened, and the unfortunate few that died, as a result of drinking tainted baby formula.

The fact that this has been allowed to continue for so long is unacceptable. While a short-term solution requires a ban of all melamine-contaminated products (not just those that meet the FDA’s arbitrary – not to mention meaningless – “safe” level of melamine), a long-term solution requires a complete overhaul of our food inspection system. In addition, we need to start holding other countries whose food we import accountable for their products, to ensure their safety and quality.

- Sofia Baliño

Wouldn’t it be great if FDA just did its job? Unfortunately for us, the growing scandal over tainted milk in China seems to have reached the United States – and it’s the latest example of how FDA isn’t up to the job of keeping toxic food off store shelves.   On Wednesday, the FDA put out a press release announcing the recall of Mr. Brown brand instant coffee because it had been contaminated with, you guessed it, melamine. That same day, recalled White Rabbit candy was found in an ethnic Chinese supermarket in Connecticut.   On Monday, FDA issued a recall for Blue Cat Flavor Drinks due to melamine contamination. 

You would think the arrival of this controversy in the U.S. market would be enough to keep FDA busy.  But in the midst of all these recalls, the agency found time to declare that eating a little bit of melamine was “safe” for consumers.  Other countries have banned the import of products containing Chinese milk ingredients.  But instead our FDA felt the need to cook up a magically safe level of melamine that is allowed in our food.

While country-of-origin labeling for meat and produce went into effect last week, the products most likely to contain Chinese milk ingredients are not covered by the law, so they don’t have to be labeled with where they are from.  So for now, consumers are left to wonder if that processed food they are eating contains any harmful contaminants.  One thing consumers can do is contact food manufacturers and ask them if they source any of their ingredients from China. 

Just weeks after Monsanto decided to divest of rBGH, Eli Lilly has acquired the artificial dairy hormone. Not surprisingly, Eli Lilly is now spreading the same misinformation about rBGH's safety and environmental benefits as Monsanto once did. 

Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone is a genetically engineered chemical that is injected into cows to make them produce more milk. Besides the documented increase of infections in dairy cows injected with rBGH, which necessitates increased use of antibiotics, there are ongoing questions about links to cancer in humans.

Despite Eli Lilly's claims, rBGH is not a 'vital technology.' Instead, it's a questionable one that has been shunned by several major dairy retailers this year alone. Help us maintain the momentum against the use of rBGH. Tell Eli Lilly that consumers want rBGH-free milk, and they want it to be labeled plain and simple.

-Filmona
Food & Water Watch
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Last week, Monsanto – the corporation that produces recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) in order to increase milk production in cows – announced its intention to sell the division that handles the artificial hormone, marketed under the brand name Posilac. This is a small victory for consumers on the path to eliminating potentially harmful and dangerous methods of producing milk.

Although Monsanto denies that consumer pressure had anything to do with its decision to abandon its “leading dairy animal production product,” it is clear that they are feeling the pressure of consumer demand for clean, safe, healthy milk. However, the battle is not over. It is yet to be decided who will take over rBGH, so we must keep campaigning for rBGH-free milk to ensure that it will be unprofitable for any company to sell.

Recently, Monsanto attempted to greenwash rBGH with claims that it allows fewer cows to produce the same amount of milk, thus reducing the industry’s carbon “hoofprint.” While this is a nice theory, the only study to support this assertion was conducted by scientists on the Monsanto payroll. But consumers who demand rBGH-free milk have shown that they know that Monsanto’s bottom line is profit, not environmental protection or consumer health. Faced with this strong opposition, Monsanto is finally tossing in the towel, hoping for someone else to step in. Let’s keep up the good work and convince any potential successors that pushing artificial hormones is a battle they won’t win.