Scientists: Melamine and Related Compounds Don’t Threaten U.S. Food

While the recent detection of melamine and related compounds in pet food and animal feed is a disturbing fact, Americans at least can derive comfort from the conclusion of a scientific panel that these substances pose no immediate threat to the U.S. food supply.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported yesterday that there is a very low risk to humans from eating products from animals that had consumed feed supplemented with pet food scraps or that contained trace amounts of melamine and related compounds.

“Basically, there is a very high threshold associated with exposure to melamine, and the good news from all of this is that no one is going to be harmed from exposure to melamine or these other related compounds,” says Dr. Jean Weese (pictured right), an Alabama Cooperative Extension System food safety specialist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and food science.

The conclusion was based on part of a “Melamine and Analogies Safety (and) Risk Assessment” conducted by scientists from five federal agencies. Scientists estimated that the human exposure to melamine and related compounds — cyanuric acid, ammelide, and ammeline — from the consumption of contaminated pork, poultry and eggs as well as from food containing pork and poultry as ingredients is low, even among people who consumed large amounts of these foods.

The level of consumption among those who consume large amounts of these foods is 18,000 to 30,000 times lower than that considered safe.

Simply put, a person could multiply the level of consumption by thousands and remain well below the level considered safe, scientists maintain.

Even if melamine were present in all solid food eaten by an individual each day, the amounts consumed still would be approximately 2,500 times lower than the level considered safe. Melamine is not metabolized and is rapidly secreted in the urine. Consequently, it is not believed to accumulate in the body of animals like other potentially harmful substances.

While Americans should take consolation from these findings, Weese says they should not lose sight of the fact that the presence of these compounds constitutes a wakeup call about the potential risks associated with global food supply.

As Weese has stressed on earlier occasions following illnesses traced to imported food, the risks associated with an increasingly international food supply are real and will persist.

Rapid strides in communication and transportation technologies have created what appears to be a smaller world in many respects. Ironically, though, similar advances in food technology and distribution have created an opposite effect — one in which our dining room table seems much larger and far more diverse in terms of the food we eat, Weese says.

Simply put, while technology has made the world much smaller, it’s made our kitchen and dining room tables much bigger and far more international, she stresses.

Unfortunately, Weese says, the bigger and more international this table becomes, the more Americans are likely to be exposed to pathogens and trace chemical elements in food produced in other countries, many of which simply do not maintain the rigid standards of food safety common throughout the United States and much of the Western world, she says.

Weese fears the challenges associated with securing a safe food supply will become even more daunting in the future as internationalism proceeds apace and the distribution chain grows even longer.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at May 8, 2007 11:21 AM | TrackBack