United States, November 26: After much hue and cry against melamine contamination that appeared in a series of incidents, the Food and Drug Administration recently found the trace marks of the notorious chemical in its domestically produced high-selling infant formulas.

While federal regulators termed the products safe, officials from FDA say that parents need not deprive their babies of the infant formula completely. Last month, FDA had stated its incapability of tagging any melamine level to which infants are exposed as safe.

FDA's director for Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Dr. Stephen Sundlof, said, "The levels that we are detecting are extremely low. They (parents) should not be changing the diet. If they've been feeding a particular product, they should continue to feed that product. That's in the best interest of the baby."

Few months back, Chinese formulas indicated melamine contamination, when around 50,000 Chinese babies were sickened and three died due to infant formulas, over which FDA raised severe safety concerns and banned importing dairy products and infant formulas from China. It also, reportedly, opened up inspection station in Beijing lately to look into ongoing contamination issues.

A leading news agency acquired some anonymous test findings conducted earlier under the Freedom of Information Act, which confirmed possible presence of melamine in a high-selling infant formula brand. Moreover, another brand sample also showed cyanuric acid in it, which is a melamine by-product.

A third infant formula manufacturer disclosed to this agency that traces of melamine were found in its formula after it conducted in-house tests. The three firms, namely Abbott Laboratories, Nestle and Mead Johnson had reported melamine contamination and they produce more than 90 percent of the market production of the formula in the U.S.

However, FDA officials insist that the contamination cannot be termed intentional because it just happened in the production process. FDA has started carefully testing all infant formulas manufactured in the United States following the uproar in China.

According to Sundlof, no melamine-induced human illness has been reported in the U.S. Melamine may combine with other elements present in the urine to form stones in kidney and bladder and can even result in kidney failure.

In United States, melamine is used in plastic food packaging that can, in turn, get transferred through rubbings to the food items. Some food processing equipments in manufacturing units are cleaned with a solution that contains melamine, which can easily seep into the products.

Sundlof maintains that the affirmative test results "so far are in the trace range, and from a public health or infant health perspective, we consider those to be perfectly fine." On October 3, the FDA had made a statement expressing zero-tolerance saying, "FDA is currently unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that does not raise public health concerns," and Sundlof's comment contradicts it.

Though all manufacturers, news media and Congress are under the impression that detection of melamine will surely result in banning those products, FDA said that traces of melamine in formulas would not necessarily harm babies.

FDA tests found extremely low levels of melamine in U.S infant formulas giving a hint that the contamination is not intentional. Nestle's Good Start Supreme Infant Formula revealed 0.247 parts per million of cyanuric acid in three tests.

Pediatrics professor Dr. Paul Grimm, from Stanford University Medical School said, "It's just a tiny amount, it's very unlikely to cause stones." However, Dr. Jerome Paulson, an associate professor of pediatrics at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., commented that FDA must study the effects of long-term but low level exposure of melamine "and not just assume it's safe, and then 15 years from now find out that it's not."