The string of cases has prompted calls for tighter checks and regulation of infant formula products. Nigel Rollins, professor of maternal and child health at Queen’s University Belfast, told the BMJ the recalls were “extremely worrisome” and reflected a “systematic failure in supply chain and food safety procedures and monitoring.”  He said, “The crisis points to the underlying problem of companies claiming that self-regulation—for quality standards and other business practices including marketing—is effective and reasonable,” he said. Rollins urged governments to “review the safety and marketing standards that these companies need to adhere to and implement mandatory regulatory processes by independent bodies that cannot be influenced by the companies.”

Patti Rundall, policy director at the UK non-profit organisation Baby Milk Action and IBFAN (International Baby Food Action Network) UK, said the recalls showed that “something’s wrong with our system.”  She added, “We’re not spot checking manufacturing—or food safety. Governments need to be putting aside money to make sure that they get things right. “When it’s your baby, you want to know that the systems are in place and that the frameworks are there, and they’re certainly not. “When it’s reliant so much on trust and that companies will behave, I think we’re in a really bad. place.”

As well as calling for action from individual governments, IBFAN is pushing for stricter global oversight and controls on the manufacturing and promotion of infant formula from the World Health Organization and Codex, the body that develops internationally recognised standards, codes of practice, and guidelines for international food trade. Early next month an IBFAN team will present a proposal to WHO’s European executive board for member states to pass an emergency resolution highlighting the issue and to accelerate the publication of a revised version of WHO’s 2007 guidelines on infant formula (…)

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The Association pour la santé des enfants, chaired by Quentin Guillemain, is calling not only for a temporary ban on the marketing but also for the suspension of the manufacturing lines of the five factories concerned in France.

An association for the defense of children’s health filed an appeal before the Paris administrative court on Monday, January 26, to denounce “the serious deficiency of the State in the management of the health scandal of contaminated infant milk”. Several manufacturers, including the leaders of the Nestlé and Danone sector, as well as Lactalis, have carried out recalls of infant milk in more than sixty countries in total, including France, since December due to a risk of cereulide contamination, a toxin produced by bacteria and which, according to the authorities, would come, according to the authorities, from a supplier of Chinese ingredients (…)

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Neither the CDC nor the FDA will name the company

Food safety investigators report that they have found the source of botulism that contaminated ByHeart infant formula and sickened more than 50 babies across the country.  In statements late Friday afternoon, both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the outbreak strain of the Clostridium botulinum toxin had been found in an ingredient. The manufacturer of the powdered milk ingredient was not named by either agency.   As of the most recent patient count update on Dec. 10, there have been no new cases confirmed. A total of 51 babies have been sickened in the outbreak. All of them have required hospitalization (…)

Coral Beach (Managing Editor Coral Beach)

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