The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to determine if television drug advertisements should be required to include a toll-free number that consumers can use to report side effects associated with their medications.

While this seems to be a good idea, opponents believe that the information could “distract” consumers away from important drug safety information.  Print ads currently contain the toll-free number, and the FDA is now required by law to include the number on their TV ads. However, the FDA has had an extension in testing the effects of the number and is expected to being a study shortly. They plan on showing fictitious ads to consumer groups and then interview those groups to determine comprehension levels.

Critics of the current advertising practices claim that situations in which medications are over-prescribed before full effects are known occur too frequently. They contend that educating consumers on how to report side effects to the FDA will lead to quicker action in addressing safety problems. Right now, consumers generally tell their prescribing physician of a drug side effects, and that information is not always reported to the FDA.

The dangerous chemical melamine that has recently been found in several goods originating from China has also been found in an infant formula made by an American manufacturer.

The discovery was found in late November, and involves a single sample of infant formula that was found to contain trace amounts of the dangerous chemical.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quickly pointed out that the amounts of the chemical were too low to be considered a heath threat, but it should be noted that the increased testing for melamine is a result of a rise in tainted products from around the globe.

Earlier this year, thousands of pets had been sickened or killed by the presence of melamine in pet food, and the source of this melamine was linked to imported wheat gluten from China. Also this year, China has had serious children’s toys, tainted toothpaste, heparin, pet food, and milk recalls. 50,000 infants became ill from the tainted milk, and 4 died.

In the past month, the FDA has issued an import alert detaining ALL milk products, milk derived ingredients and finished food products containing milk from China due to the presence of melamine.

These foods include both human foods (bakery products, cereals, cheese, ice cream, soft drinks, and candy) as well as several types of pet foods (pet cat foods, pet dog foods, pet fish foods, other pet foods, laboratory animal feeds, pet and laboratory animal foods, byproducts for animals, dairy byproducts for animals, and animal waste feed products) imported from China.

According to the FDA, the melamine milk contamination started in infant formula but “these contaminated milk components appear to have been dispersed throughout the Chinese food supply chain…Reports of contamination have come from more than thirteen countries in Asia, Europe, and Australia, in addition to the United States.”

Time magazine has reported that the Chinese government continues to downgrade the severity of the problem. Some believe that the contaminated foods are “one of the most important factors resulting in the soaring number of birth defects in China.”