FDA contemplates stringent food safety norms

Washington, December 1: After being rebuked in the home country for letting the melamine-affected baby food sold in United States, the Food and Drug Administration has now decided to "radically redesign the process”.

The agency is in the process of hiring 130 employees to scrutinize and collect samples. It also intends to open offices outside the United States to perk up the checks on food exported to the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for protecting the health of the citizens, has been inspecting a mere 1 percent of most imported food for which it was widely criticized. Consequently, it has now decided to follow certain strict food safety norms.

It appears that the FDA has adhered to the advice of Ms. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut. She had remarked, "It’s got to be so totally redone. It needs resources; it needs better management; it needs less influence from the industry and more influence on the science." The FDA now plans to do all of that.

Authorities in the United States had found traces of an industrial chemical called melamine in infant formula that had Chinese origin. Thankfully, the quantum of melamine found was lower than the level considered unsafe for infants by the governments of China, Malaysia, Canada and New Zealand. Of 77 samples tested, one contained trace levels of melamine.

The FDA defines a trace as less than 2,500 parts per billion for foods and other drinks and maintains that this level of melamine found in food items is safe. Dr Daniel Rauch, a pediatrician at New York University's Langone Medical Center said, "That's a grain of sand in the beach. That's a very, very small amount." However, the safety threshold for infant formulas is now fixed at 1,000 parts per billion.

Melamine is an organic base and a trimer of cyanamide. This industrial chemical contains 66 percent nitrogen by mass and can be used as a pesticide, flame retardant and cleaning product. Large intake of melamine in the human body can result in kidney stones and other illnesses.

Since September this year, 54,000 Chinese consumers have been hospitalized and four infants have lost their lives due to ingestion of excess amount of melamine.