Safe Melamine Levels Named by World Health Organization

With the death toll in the China melamine scare now officially up to 6 infants from consumption of tainted baby formula, the amount of melamine allowed in foods has been under investigation. The latest results showed that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to decide what amount of the dangerous chemical, if any, is allowed to be produced in foods and packaging throughout products imported to and made in the United States.

Melamine—an industrial chemical—is found in cleaning supplies, used as fertilizer, used on processing plant equipment and often found in plastic packaging and tubular containers most used for holding baby formula. Melamine may not be purposely added to food products but it is now known to rub off the machines or packaging directly into the substance being made. Since the major contamination in China, melamine has been found in milk products throughout the world, including major manufacturer’s of the United States. Melamine is toxic and can cause kidney stones, kidney disease, other organ problems and kidney failure which is fatal in children. 

New evidence has found that although small traces of melamine may in fact be harmless to most of our foods, a limit of the amount of melamine allowed to be found inside most products still need to be set. In order to prevent the earlier devastation in China—in order to falsify the amount of protein in certain brands of baby formula toxic amounts of melamine were dumped into the mixture and distributed across the country in September affecting almost 300,000 babies—the United States, in conjunction with the European Union (EU) started working together to fix the problem.

The World Health Organization (WHO) decried last week that they have joined with the United States and the EU in setting the melamine boundary that would help in determining recalls and alerts for certain products containing the chemical. Food experts met in Canada last week organized by WHO and came to the conclusion that while melamine should not be contained in our food products to begin with, sometimes contamination is unavoidable. The largest amount of melamine a person could stand per day in their body is 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

A researcher from the National Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety in China, Chen Junshi, says, “WHO's daily limit is a guideline for all countries to control their melamine standards. It means normal people can consume up to 10 mg melamine a day without any harmful effects. It also means the country's existing limit is safe.”

The EU’s standard for melamine is set at 0.5 milligrams, Canada’s is at 0.35 milligrams and the FDA’s limited melamine in the United States was at 0.63 milligrams (which was later changed to 0.063 milligrams daily). The WHO’s cut off point, or tolerable daily intake (TDI), is somewhere in between. The World Health Organization’s food safety director, Jorgen Schlundt, explains that the boundary set by the WHO is based on the amount of melamine a person can stand per day without incurring a bigger health risk. Schlundt says of the quick-acting WHO’s response to setting a melamine limit, “We expect this will better guide the authorities in protecting the health of the public.”

WHO’s stipulation of 0.2 milligrams converts to the fact that a 110 pound person (50 kilograms) can consume up to 10 milligrams a day and still be considered “safe.” By doing the math, the assumption can be made that the safety level for a child is considerably lower and for an infant, there may not be any trace of melamine that could be safe for ingestion.

China’s scandal has made national headlines with a worldwide health alert, causing the 27 nations within the EU to ban all Chinese milk imports now including soy based products. The US recalled Chinese-manufactured milk products and issued a warning for consumption. Some instant coffee and tea drinks containing Chinese made non-dairy creamer have also been recalled by the FDA www.fda.gov to prevent further illness. Recently, high levels of melamine were found in baking powder made in China and are next to undergo testing.

Even though no incidents have been reported outside of China due to the excess of melamine, the World Health Organization has proved with this fixed tolerance limit of melamine, that prevention is the main cause and that safety continues to come in numbers.