Pesticide Linked to Melanine in Infant Formula

Last December I wrote about melamine in infant formula. Based on the information I had at that time, I believed that the most likely sources of melamine contamination in our food supply was probably through intentional adulteration of animal feed, and, as Dr. Stephen Sundlof of the FDA suggested, melamine-based food packaging and plasticware. New research suggests a potential source of the melamine contamination may be a pesticide used on crops and in animal feed.

Researchers in Canada searching for the source of melamine contamination they found in 71 of 94 samples of infant formula tested the packaging from which the melamine tainted formula came. The result: they found no melamine in packaging. So where did it come from? The manufacturer of cyromazine has published data that showed when goats were dosed with the pesticide 5-9 percent was metabolized to melamine. That led the Canadian researchers to conclude:

It appears plausible that milk from cattle exposed to cyromazine may contain [melamine]; if such milk is used to prepare infant formula, the [melamine] may be incorporated into the final product.

Melamine in Infant Formula Sold in Canada: Occurrence and Risk Assessment, J. Agric. Food Chem., 2009, 57 (12), pp 5340–5344

Cyromazine is a pesticide used to kill insects and mites. It is fed to caged layer chickens to control the growth of fly larvae in their manure, and it is applied to crops to control insects. Melamine is a metabolite of cryomazine. A metabolite is a compound that is produced from the chemical changes of another compound in the body. A percentage of cyromazine is metabolized to melamine in the body, perhaps as much as 9 percent as shown by the manufacturer’s own data.