I. Nitrogen Plus Glycerine Equals… This is a follow up from my last journal about melamine/cyanuric acid. Recall that
melamine and
cyanuric acid are two related chemicals (the second comes from the first in a simple reaction) which are not terribly toxic by themselves. However, they combine in the human (or animal ) body to form water insoluble crystals which clog the kidneys, causing kidney stones, renal failure, bladder cancer and even death. If low grade industrial melamine waste (which is contaminated with cyanuric acid and other breakdown products) is added to food as was done in China to increase its apparent protein content (all of these chemicals are high in nitrogen), foods contain a lethal cocktail of poisons. However, even if high grade, pure product is added to the food supply, we are in trouble if we eat a little melamine here and then get a little cyanuric acid there and the two meet inside our bloodstream.
Well, guess what?
In the United States, we are adding cyanuric acid to our beef products and we are adding melamine to our vegetable and feed products.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4537552&mesg_id=4537552See the above to read about products such as Roughage Buster Plus from Archer Daniels Midland, a protein supplement for cows that contains cyanuric acid. Why? Maybe because the FDA told them they would have to stop feeding livestock dead animal parts for protein (think mad cow disease.) Turns out that cows can get some protein from plastic, because of all those stomachs. And plastic is cheap. Anyway,
cyanuric acid is introduced to our food supply deliberately everyday in the United States in the form of protein supplements fed to cows . However, not all of the plastic is digested to protein. Cyanuric acid can be expected to contaminate the cow’s blood (and therefore meat), kidneys (where it will concentrate) and urine which will spread the chemical to water, ground and manure which may be used as fertilizer. Cyanuric acid has the potential to contaminate beef and milk in this way, and it could also get into other foods if it is handled carelessly.
While cows are eating their plastic in the form of cyanuric acid,
our crops are getting dosed with melamine. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/opinion/17mcwilliams.html?_r=1 On a more concrete note, melamine not only has widespread industrial applications, but is also used to buttress the foundation of American agriculture.
Fertilizer companies commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck. But the government doesn’t regulate how much melamine is applied to the soil. This melamine accumulates as salt crystals in the ground, tainting the soil through which American food sucks up American nutrients.
Time released protein for plants. They are lucky. They don’t have kidneys. But you do. With melamine in the ground, harvested crops and processed foods may be contaminated. And grazing animals may consume melamine, on top of the cyanuric acid that they are being fed.
As the author of this piece points out, even if you deliberately seek out organic foods that have been grown without the use of melamine fertilizers, the manure used to fertilize the crops may have come from animals that consumed melamine. Or cyanuric acid pellets. Or both. Maybe we need Organic Plus, farms that use only organic manure.
II. More Realistic Safety Testing, PleaseThe way things work now, chemical safety testing assumes that we will only be exposed to
one toxin at a time . So, the FDA determined that melamine was safe years ago, because melamine by itself seemed to have no effects on animals. Then, people in China started putting
melamine scrap which contains all sorts of chemicals including cyanuric acid into pet food and formula. That is what the people who were testing for toxicity should have done in the first place. Industrial waste seldom comes in a pure form.
Here is an article from 1999 that shows what can happen if you test chemicals individually and then test them altogether. A commonly used fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide were tested in rats in the concentrations in which they are found in groundwater.
http://www.pmac.net/pesticides_fertilizers.html "The single most important finding of the study is that common mixtures, not the standard one-chemical-at-a-time experiments, can show biological effects at current concentrations in groundwater," said Warren P. Porter, the lead author of the study and a UW-Madison professor of zoology and environmental toxicology. Although used worldwide, "tests for these compounds in combination are very rare, although they frequently co-occur."
The experiments performed by Porter's group suggest that children and the developing fetus are most at risk from the pesticide-fertilizer mixtures. Their influence on developing neurological, endocrine and immune systems, said Porter, portend change in ability to learn and in patterns of aggression.
The privately funded Wisconsin study focused on three commonly used farm chemicals: aldicarb, an insecticide; atrazine, a herbicide; and nitrate, a chemical fertilizer. All three are in wide use worldwide and are the most ubiquitous contaminants of groundwater in the United States.
In the series of experiments, when mice were given drinking water laced with combinations of pesticides and nitrate, they exhibited altered immune, endocrine and nervous system functions. Those changes, according to Porter, occurred at concentrations currently found in groundwater.
Cross reactions are common. One compound can induce a chemical change in the body that makes it more sensitive to another compound. Doctors see this all the time with medications. For instance, a wide variety of foods and medications can affect Coumadin, a blood thinner. Some anti-depressants become poisons in the presence of certain other drugs or foods. If two or more chemicals are likely to be encountered together in nature, then a laboratory scenario in which they are tested separately is next to useless. So, for instance, if formula manufacturers are buying milk products on an open market in which some cows are being fed cyanuric acid pellets and others are eating melamine contaminated feed, there is a high likelihood that infants consuming formula will be exposed to
both chemicals, particularly if they switch brands regularly.
This is why we need to reconsider the practice of adding melamine (fertilizer) and cyanuric acid (cattle protein supplement) to our food supply. III. Consumer Backlash? On a lighter note, here is the September, 2008 Melamine Industry Update from DSM, the world’s largest producer of the stuff.
http://www.dsm.com/en_US/downloads/dmm/DSM_Melamine_Industry_Update_Sept_5_2008.pdfThey can not figure out why demand for their product (and its price) is not rising when the demand for and price of urea (a necessary precursor and rival fertilizer) is sky high. Only China continues to buy melamine in large amounts since it is a preferred fertilizer (and possibility feed supplement and food adulterant) in that country.
And a couple of FYI's for people who are interested in what goes in their food. KBR (Halliburton) is apparently a big player in the urea/fertilizer business nowadays with a bunch of plants scattered around the world thanks to its propriety process for making urea out of ammonia. And Syngas---artificial fuel made out of waste, often biomass---and nitrogen fertilizers are now conjoined twin industries.
http://www.crugroup.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/EVENTS%20Documents/NIT08_FinalBrochureINT.pdfSo, as we see more Syngas, we should see more pressure to use nitrogen fertilizers. Keep that in mind when you see the FDA do stupid stuff like this in regard to the recent revelations that it had concealed the fact that several different brands of formula were adulterated with plastics, one with cyanuric acid, another with melamine (thanks to the AP for filing the Freedom of Information request that uncovered the truth):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/26/AR2008112600386.html?nav=most_emailed Leon said that the amounts discovered are safe and that parents should continue to feed formula to their children. "We know that trace levels do not pose a risk whatsoever," she said.
That contradicts the agency's recent statements about melamine, including a position paper that was on its Web site yesterday that asserted there are no safe levels of melamine for infants. "FDA is currently unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that does not raise public health concerns," the document said.
Agency scientists have maintained they could not set a safe level of melamine exposure for babies because they do not understand the effects of long-term exposure on a baby's developing kidneys. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that infant formula is a baby's sole source of food for many months. Premature infants absorb an especially large dose of the chemical, compared with full-term babies.
"Just one month ago, the FDA had been very clear about how they could not set a safe level of melamine in formula for babies," said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. "Now they're saying trace levels are no problem. What changed?"
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