WSFA 12 News Montgomery, AL |FDA catching flack for not issuing cookie recall

FDA catching flack for not issuing cookie recall

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - WSFA 12 News first told you about the Alabama Agriculture Department's findings of melamine contaminated cookies on store shelves Wednesday.

Melamine is a chemical used in plastics, and it can also be added to food illegally to imitate protien.

Now the Food and Drug Administration is catching flack for not demanding a full recall of Koala's March cookies from a national consumer advocacy group called Food & Water Watch.

"It is completely unacceptable that FDA has not issued a recall for a contaminated product that is on U.S. shelves and ending up in the homes of American consumers and their families," said Food & Water Watch Executive Director, Wenonah Hauter in a release. "What's alarming is that not only had a product been found in stores where it shouldn't have been in the first place, but it also had exceeded FDA's safe levels for human consumption."

Tony Corbo, a lobbyist with the Food & Water Watch group, held a conference call with FDA officials as far back at October 8th to determine whether or not the agency had tested the cookies and to determine whether or not the cookies would be recalled. Corbo said he was told the FDA was working with the distributor, Lotte USA, to pull the product from shelves and that the cookies tested by the agency came back negative for the chemical.

It was Wednesday when Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks announced that the department's Pesticide Residue Laboratory came back with positive traces of melamine in two flavors of the cookie brand: strawberry and chocolate.

Alabama's Ag. Department also detected the melamine chemical in another Chinese import recently and pulled it from shelves last month; White Rabbit Creme Candy. 

And Food & Water Watch cites a third Alabama finding from last year as proof that the FDA isn't living up to standards. In that case Alabama agriculture officials found contaminated seafood from China that eventually led to an FDA Import Alert. The watchdog group says the FDA is now considering lifting that import alert.

"We cannot take FDA at their word that dairy products from China are safe, since at this point it seems that FDA is more concerned with promoting imports than protecting consumers," concluded Hauter. "It is time for FDA to follow the lead of countries around the world that have taken precautionary steps to protect their citizens by banning imports of Chinese dairy products and processed foods that contain Chinese milk ingredients."