Melamine and you

This week, I made a quick visit to the FDA lab in Irvine, California. The FDA uses one of our instruments, a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (seen here) or LC-MS/MS, to analyze various food products for the presence of Melamine and Cyanuric Acid. These are the compounds you may have heard about in the news recently, found in products from pet food to infant formula to chicken, pork and fish. The good news is that we're pretty safe here in the US, as long as we stay away from food products produced in China, especially if they contain dairy ingredients. The bad news is that some of the products we find a the store contain ingredients that may come from China, but that information isn't on the label. For the most part, melamine isn't too toxic for adults, so the trace amounts that have been detected aren't really too much for adults to worry about. However, it sort of makes you mad that certain food producers are putting these chemicals in our food products in order to make a litte bit more money. Luckily, the FDA is inspecting our food (using the best Mass Spectrometers on the market, Thermo Scientific!), and working hard to keep us safe.