Science News Review

Precipitous Rise of Kidney Stones in US Children

Oct 29 at 5:05pm by Aileen

More Melamine in Chinese Food Products

It seems like the entire month of October has been one big Halloween Trick (not Treat) as the grotesque and blatantly illegal ‘melamine in food’ imported from China horror just keeps getting worse and worse. Some might wonder why all food products from China weren’t immediately banned back when tainted pet food cause the painful deaths of thousands of dogs and cats last year, once it was confirmed that Chinese state-owned food processors were adding the industrial plastic to wheat gluten to fool tests for protein content in this ubiquitous protein additive. Alas, imports were not banned, and now this dangerous adulterant is in hundreds of common food items.

Thousands of Chinese infants were poisoned when melamine was added to infant formulas and milk products. It’s in medicines exported and has caused sickness and death in Central and South America. Now it’s in candy and eggs and almost every wheat product from China. The US does not require country of origin labeling of foods, thus American consumers have no real way of knowing they’re buying poison.

Tainted Chinese Products Criminal Timeline traces the tainted Chinese food scandal back through 2004, and includes many other adulterants Americans have been ingesting. Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides. It is not a pretty picture, and our FDA has been criminally lax in their duty of protecting the safety of our food supply.

As for melamine, here’s an Update: now coffee, Snickers, KitKat, M&Ms and Heinz products such as baby cereals and crackers. The latest contamination is being found in eggs, which got there via tainted animal feed. This has caused United Nations officials to worry that it is also in chicken, pork, farmed fish and other meats.

Melamine causes kidney stones and kidney failure. The Chinese babies who died all died of kidney and organ failure. So it comes as no surprise that doctors are now seeing a rise in kidney stones in US children as young as 5. The situation is very, very serious.

Educate yourself! Fused Report has a cache of reports on melamine contamination from news organizations all over the world, and Food Standards offers a detailed risk assessment of the adulterant. There is a constantly updated list of tainted products available at the Natural Remedies Blog too, and with Halloween coming this Friday pay special attention to the candy list. Also see FDA allowing melamine in Halloween candy.

Protect yourself and your family, because our government’s FDA will not.

Links:

A Rise in Kidney Stones Seen in U.S. Children
Cache of News Reports on Melamine Contamination
Food Standards: detailed risk assessment
List of Contaminated Products
FDA allowing melamine in Halloween candy