The list of products and ingredients from China poisoned with melamine keeps growing. On Wednesday, the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries began to warn consumers about melamine contamination in “Koala’s March” crème filled cookies. The cookies, manufactured in China, are distributed by Lotte USA.
The discovery, made by Alabama’s Pesticide Residue Laboratory, found melamine in strawberry and chocolate flavored Koala’s March cookies. The products are still available for sale on the Internet through such major suppliers as Amazon.com and on the shelves in states outside of Alabama.
The state is advising its residents to throw away the products and not eat them, and has warned that other flavors that have not been tested yet might still be on the market. According to the state of Alabama, the company that distributes the cookies, Lotte USA, has been withdrawing all flavors of the cookies from the market. However, a full recall has not been issued yet.
The Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has not issued a warning or advisory for the cookies or any products by the distributor.
The discovery of melamine tainted Koala’s March cookies in the U.S. comes more than two weeks after the same discovery was made by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Oct. 1. Canada issued an alert about eight different sizes and flavors of the brand’s cookies.
At the time of publication, Lotte USA’s website was down. According to Tom Orr, Human Resource Administrative Specialist with Lotte USA, “We have no comment at this time.”
As the products are still available on the Internet and the distributor is not providing information, Alabama has been proactive in an effort to protect consumers.
“We’re making sure we’re getting them [contaminated products] off the shelves,” said Ron Sparks, Alabama’s Agriculture and Industries Commissioner. “We’ve been really aggressive since we had the milk problem a few weeks ago. We began testing other products.”
The state, which has about 16 inspectors in the field, has done about 100 tests in the past few weeks. State governments regularly work with the FDA in testing and removing food that could be contaminated or dangerous.
But Sparks says red flags about products from China have been raised numerous times in the past.
“We’ve had a red flag here ever since we started looking at the Chinese seafood,” said Sparks, who adds that the state level testing for problems and removing products found to have problems is the best way for them to protect consumers. “The only recourse we have is to test with our labs. We don’t have the ability to negotiate trade agreements, so we try to do the best we can.”
Products from China have been at the center of major product recalls and safety alerts in the past year. Concerns over melamine were first brought to the fore when contaminated milk in China began to sicken and kill babies. On Sept. 12, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an advisory concerning the public that despite extreme cases in China, there were no known cases of contaminated infant formula in the U.S. Since then, the Agency has issued advisories for at least 11 products with melamine contamination that are distributed in the U.S.
“I’ve always thought China was a problem,” said Starks. “We’ve had problems with fish, cookies, dog food, toys, toothpaste.” Starks adds that he thinks government needs to do everything it can to protect consumers, as they have no way to test for melamine themselves.
“They depend on us,” said Starks. “That’s the one thing they depend on government for, to make sure their food is safe.”
Alabama has communicated their lab test results to the FDA, which has not yet issued any advisory or warning to consumers. Alabama is using various means to protect residents, including making phone calls to get the cookies off of websites where they are for sale.
Melamine was added to infant formula and other products containing milk protein in China, and was the culprit in massive pet food recalls just last year. The chemical is used in plastics manufacturing and as an illegal additive in foods to simulate protein.
