SLAMBOARD

One of the many things that the FDA has to take into consideration is the possibility of causing panic. It took me several minutes to digest a recent story about melamine in American baby formula. The FDA diligently tested US supplies of baby formula in the wake of the scandal in China. They didn’t find any evidence of deliberate addition of the toxic substance but the tests were accurate enough to detect trace amounts. Melamine is a very common substance and it can potentially get rubbed off of equipment and packaging (my mother once found a large chunk of wood in a boxed chocolate).

Health experts do not consider these trace amounts to pose a health risk, but the FDA still had a problem. They did not have a maximum safe level on the books at the time. The trace amounts were not publicly announced. The associated press had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get access to the results. This makes the FDA look bad but the bottom line is that scaring people out of using baby formula would have caused greater harm to public health than the melamine.

This post is a bit unbalanced so far. For the ying to my yang, please read this slam of the FDA on NaturalNews.com. It says almost the opposite of what I said and strangely enough I don’t entirely disagree with it. My commentary is the result of my imagining what would have happened if this particular incident played out with the FDA acting the way that people like Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, want it to act.

The WHO recommends two years of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life. Breast milk is not regulated by the FDA.