WASHINGTON — 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.
When melamine was found in Chinese milk we all recognised this for the scandal it was. Profits should never come before the welfare of human beings especially in a nation that purports to have socialist aspirations. Chinese authorities have accordingly fallen on the perpetrators and punishment is likely to be harsh.
One disturbing byproduct of this affair was that it reinforced a widespread assumption in the West that it was somehow peculiar to the genetic make-up of the Chinese which renders us all super-villainous money-grubbing sadists. Race trumped class yet again.
The scandal of melamine found in Chinese milk now goes global as the toxic chemical that wrecks your kidneys has not only been detected in American infant formula but the US food authorities are allowing the toxin to stay in “trace” amounts.
How big is a “trace”? Would you accept a “trace” of faecal matter in your food?
One of the culprits here is our old friend, Nestlé. Not content with promoting the use of formula feed over superior breast milk in the Third World, like every other business chasing profits, the corporation moves closer to home as capitalism contracts and more markets have to be found.
And what about the acrylamides that coat your breakfast cereals?
Brecht once asked who was the bigger criminal: the bank robber or the bank? I’d ask, who is the bigger criminal: the individual killer or the corporation that markets this stuff to millions?
Madam Miaow says … Call me mistress of the bleedin’ obvious, but greed knows no genetics.
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Anna’s food blog here:
http://annacheneats.blogspot.com/
I don’t think regulation of the food industry, will be much better with Obama.
I think you’re right, Renegade. But I am horrified that, after decades of scandal, Nestle is still doing this sort of thing.
And then there’s the Cadbury’s ecoli affair a year or two ago when they allowed contaminated chocolate bars to stay on the shelves.
A finger of fudge is just enough to give your kid the squits! That’s how their ad song should have gone.