WHO announces tolerable level of melamine intake, VN still considering

WHO announces tolerable level of melamine intake, VN still considering

17:30' 08/12/2008 (GMT+7)

Local milk companies are suffering heavy losses because of the lack of standard tolerable level of melamine in food. VietNamNet Bridge – The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced a tolerable daily intake (TDI) for melamine. The Vietnamese Health Ministry said it is considering setting a suitable melamine level in food. Meanwhile, local milk companies are suffering heavy losses because of the lack of standard tolerable level of melamine in food. According to an announcement released on December 5 by WHO, the TDI for melamine should be limited to 0.2 mg per kilogram of body weight. This means a person who weighs 50kg can tolerate up to 10 mg melamine per day. Meanwhile, WHO also stressed that melamine is a contaminant that should not be in food, although sometimes it is unavoidable. Nguyen Thi Khanh Tram, Vice Chief of the Food Safety and Hygiene Agency under the Health Ministry, said it is rational for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to set the melamine threshold in animal feeds, and the Health Ministry will consider the tolerable level of melamine in food, after the WHO announced the TDI for melamine. Nguyen Cong Khan, Chief of the Food Safety and Hygiene Agency under the Health Ministry, also said that the Health Ministry is about to set the tolerable level of melamine in food based on careful calculation of melamine safety limit in food, so it will take the ministry some more time. Before the WHO announced the TDI for melamine, some countries set their own rules on this. Some dairy companies were hit by the lack of a TDI for melamine in Vietnam. The Hanoi Milk JS Company is currently stuck with 180 tons of powdered milk that it imported from China early this year. According to the Health Ministry, this volume of milk contains melamine, so it must be destroyed or re-exported to China. However, Dinh Van Thinh, Vice Chairman of Hanoimilk, said the firm can not re-export this volume of milk to China because the concentration of melamine in this product is lower than the TDI for melamine in China and other countries. Moreover, the firms that sold milk to Hanoimilk are not listed on the blacklist of the Chinese government. Dang Anh Tuan, Deputy General Director of Hanoimilk, said the firm would not destroy the volume of milk. “Management agencies should come to destroy it. We are exhausted already. We can not pay VND 1 million to destroy each ton of milk. The losses at Hanoimilk caused by the Health Ministry’s sluggishness in issuing the TDI for melamine in food is VND 42 billion ($2.47 million),” Tuan said.