FDA - WTF? Melamine is ok in trace amounts in infant formula?
The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it will allow trace amounts of melamine in infant formula. Earlier this week, the agency said it found the industrial chemical in at least one brand of formula sold in the U.S.
The new stance partly reverses the agency's October assessment that it was safe to consume food and beverages with melamine levels below 2.5 parts per million, with the exception of infant formula. The FDA said at the time that it couldn't determine if there was a safe level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula... The level of 2.5 parts per million set in October for melamine and melamine-related compounds for other food and drinks remains unchanged.
It seems like the regulatory administrations in the US are there more to protect big businesses from consumer concerns than the other way around. Meh. I mean... trace amounts, ok... that's really small... but still, just for once, can't they sack up and say, "No, we will not set the lowest possible standards..." rather than setting the lowest possible standard then lower them even further because some lobbyist got their panties in a twist about something?
Wikipedia has a brief summary of melamine's properties...
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and has nothing really to do with what's actually healthy for us.
It is all about protecting big business, and it's been that way since the pharmaceutical companies started lobbying congress in the 40s and 50s. I just hope that with this new administration, some shit will change.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that plastic should be allowed in infant formula - no matter in what amount. If people have to make that shit by hand to ensure that it's plastic-free, then that's what needs to happen.
"Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki
"Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki
I don't trust the FDA at all, I really think they are just there to prop up corporations/big pharma (or little phrama for that matter it's just that the big ones have more $$$ & consequently power). It's a sick sick (no pun intended!) situation- they aren't protecting us at all, just protecting the interests of corporations...like they need more protecting. This whole situation has just cemented my perception of the FDA.
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. -- Emily Dickinson
You want to do what you think is right and what matters to you, and if other people don't like it, as my father would have said, they can go fuck themselves. -- Amy Bloom
Seriously, what is wrong with having higher standards? If an infant is eating formula exclusively, that is all that baby has day in and day out for a year. The baby triples its weight and makes millions of new cells. Trace amounts of any crap is a serious problem.
Sunflower the unflower
Mom's Tinfoil Hat
Foodie loves Picky
Sunflower the unflower
To me, this sounds a lot like "dude, sorry, this shit is already out there and we just can't cope with y'all freaking out and not buying up all the formula. And we already got spanked back in the 80's for trying to pull some underhanded bullshit "mass donation" of fucked up baby formula to an impoverished nation. So we're just gonna keep peddling this shit to impoverished mothers domestically via WIC, and lower middle class moms who can't pump at work or just can't or don't want to breastfeed."
BTW, ds drank about 20 ounces of formula a day; and 40 ounces breastmilk. I felt like shit about the formula which I got from WIC; I wondered if there was something messed up in it at the time. Every bottle I prepared, I thought about how there could be anything in there. I also worried about breastmilk; was he getting PCB's? Lead? Mercury? I grew up around nuclear reactors, oceans, shipping centers, a few factories. What about all that pot I smoked and the E I dropped in the 90's? Was anything transferring? What about soaps and lotions? Did they use some funky chemical when they processed the cocoa butter?
damned if you don't.
Bottles: bisphenol A. And, you get it even if you pump your milk and use plastic bottles. (Like me)
Formula: melamine and bacteria that causes necrotizing enterocolitis.
Breastmilk: phthalates? Mercury?
Ugh, I wrote an email to my SIL warning her about bisphenol A, and she wrote me back a nasty note saying it was just another way for us breastfeeders to make her feel guilty. Uh, in the letter I wrote, I said that the bottles I used with my kids (I pumped) were on the bad list.
It would be much better if people could have decent conversations about this in the first place. Oh, and if the government got the poisons out of our environment in the first place.
Sunflower the unflower
That's what we used a lot.
"Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki
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Ha! Yeah, all the fun stuff we're learning about plastic bottles & what was I using to make sure I got all my water every day during nursing? A big plastic bottle, of course.
There's no end of things to wonder about...
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library