The Department of Health has again seized a shipment of toxic foodstuffs imported from China, this time baking ammonia containing the industrial chemical melamine. Following the recent scandal over tainted milk, the incident has again put food safety in the spotlight.
Since the melamine scandal broke, we have heard officials explaining the matter in terms of concentrations or permissible amounts of the substance, but rarely do they approach the problem from the angle of risk assessment, management and communication. Originally the department announced that melamine was not an allowed food additive. However it adjusted its position by adopting Hong Kong’s standard of 2.5 parts per million (ppm) as the maximum allowable concentration in foodstuffs. In so doing, health officials in effect said that it is legal for foods to contain melamine.
Considering that it is banned as a food additive, the melamine content of food and drinks should be zero, no matter what kind of test equipment is used.
US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) documents state that the reference dose for the concentration of melamine, in the absence of other toxic substances, that can be safely consumed is 0.63 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (mg/kg bw-day). What this means is that if a person’s daily consumption of melamine is less than this then there is no appreciable risk to health.
If babies are fed 240g of infant formula containing 2.5ppm of melamine from birth until the age of two, and the average body weight of babies is 7.9kg, then the average daily consumption of melamine over two years will be 0.076mg/kg bw-day, only 12 percent of the FDA’s reference dose. Nevertheless, given that melamine is banned as a food additive, the allowable concentration of melamine in foodstuffs should be zero, or “not detectable.”
We hope that the government will set up a national risk assessment structure with decision-making powers. Only if a clear procedure and methods of risk assessment are laid out can we hope to handle incidents like the melamine scandal.
Chiang Chow-feng, Lan Yu-ching, Ling Ming-pei and Hsieh Hsien-tang are lecturers at the Department of Health Risk Management at China Medical University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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