France lowers the permitted limit of cereulide following the infant milk scandal

The French government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, has decided to lower the permitted limit of the presence of the toxin cereulida in response to the scandal of contaminated infant milk affecting major brands worldwide. "In the context of the international alert related to the presence of the toxin cereulida in an ingredient from a single factory in China, which has led to the withdrawal of infant milk in several countries, the ministry has decided to apply a stricter limit threshold to all French manufacturers in order to reinforce the health safety system," the ministry detailed in a statement. The measure, announced on Friday evening, specifies that the threshold will now be 0.014 micrograms of cereulida per kilogram, instead of 0.03. This latter was based "on the lowest value available in the scientific literature," from the work of the Netherlands Institute for Public Health (RIVM), the French ministry detailed, but the new threshold "allows us to go even further in ...