Tighter Melamine Standards Needed

Bloomberg News reports that standards on melamine in food may need to be tightened in the U.S. and Europe after an expert panel recommended more stringent controls on the contaminant that triggered a food-safety scandal in China.

The tolerable amount of melamine in food a person can ingest daily without “appreciable health risk” is 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, according to guidelines set at a World Health Organization meeting in Ottawa this week. The guidance is set at 0.63 mg in the U.S., 0.5 mg in Europe and 0.35 mg in Canada.

Geneva-based WHO is helping governments set safe limits in food for recall purposes after six children died and 51,900 were hospitalized in China for urinary problems related to the consumption of baby formula tainted with melamine. Normally used in plastics, the chemical makes protein levels appear higher, helping disguise diluted milk.

“We expect this could better guide the authorities in protecting the health of their public,” said Jorgen Schlundt, WHO’s director for food safety, in a statement yesterday.

China’s Health Ministry reported earlier this week that 294,000 children appeared to have suffered after drinking formula containing melamine, which is also used to make fertilizer. The country’s exports of dairy produce plunged 92 percent in October compared with a year earlier, the China Daily said Dec. 2.

It’s not known when the contamination in China started, the WHO said in a separate statement dated Dec. 4. Tainted raw material may have been exported as infant formula or other milk- containing products to other countries, it said.

Health Risk

Melamine toxicity is increased when found with a related compound known as cyanuric acid, though there is no adequate data to assess the health risk of concurrent exposure to both chemicals, the agency said in yesterday’s statement.

Limits for melamine in infant formula of 1 part per million and 2.5 parts per million for other food introduced by “many countries provide a sufficient margin of safety,” Schlundt said.

Levels of melamine in dairy products, including infant formula, ranged between 0.09 to 6,196.61 milligrams per kilogram, according to assessments by the Chinese Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. In food processing ingredients, such as egg yolk, the levels found ranged from 0.1 to 5.03 mg/kg.