FDA: Melamine found in baby formula made in China

By Elizabeth Weise | USA TODAY
September 12, 2008

The FDA is working with state health agencies across the country to make members of Chinese-American communities aware of the danger.

Chinese newspapers report that some infant formula has been linked to kidney problems and kidney stones in babies in China because the formula contains melamine -- the same industrial contaminant from China that poisoned and killed thousands of U.S. dogs and cats last year.

Sanlu Group, the major Chinese dairy that produced the formula, has recalled 700 tons of the product, state Xinhua News Agency reported today.

No baby formula approved for use in the USA is manufactured in China, the FDA says. "We want to reassure the public that there's no contamination in the domestic supply of infant formula," says Janice Oliver, deputy of operations at the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

In addition, no U.S. manufacturers or marketers of infant formula receive ingredients from China. "We contacted all of them," Oliver says.

The FDA is concerned that illegal infant formula may be sold in Asian and ethnic markets. It happened in 2004, when fake formula from China, which killed dozens of babies there, was found in at least one U.S. store. "None of this should be in the United States. We're not aware of anyone finding it here, but knowing that it happened once before, we want to get the word out," Oliver says.

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