A friend sent me this link. It's on an official FDA webpage!
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/melamltr.html October 10, 2008
"Dear Colleague" Letter to the United States Food Manufacturing Industry, Regarding Melamine
This letter is intended to ensure that members of the United States food manufacturing industry are aware of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) serious concern about the possibility that foods or food ingredients produced in China and exported to the United States may be contaminated with melamine or its analogues.
In light of current circumstances, there are several useful steps to help protect the public health available to manufacturers of products containing milk-derived ingredients, including the following:
Know the precise origin of each milk-derived ingredient. For example, milk-derived ingredients that are sourced from countries other than China could actually originate from China.
Determine that milk-derived ingredients originating from China are free of melamine and its analogues prior to usage.
For food manufactured in the last twelve months which might still be on the shelf at retail or in stock elsewhere, determine whether the food might contain any milk-derived ingredients from China. If any such foods exist, verify that they do not contain melamine or its analogues.In addition, it would be useful for manufacturers to be alert to the
possibility that non-milk-derived ingredients from China that are or may be sold on the basis of protein content, such as soy protein, also could be contaminated with melamine.
Note they are talking about food manufactured in the last year and the need to verify that it doesn't contain any Chinese melamine. This is extremely scary to me. If the FDA has taken such notice, with their downplaying attitude towards so many food hazards, it must be really bad. But it certainly doesn't have any teeth to it--they are just telling the foxes to watch the henhouse a little closer IMO.
