Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Melamine, the nitrogen-rich substance that found its way into pet food and treats and, more recently, infant formula and other milk products in China, continues to make appearances in unexpected places.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a recall of teddy bears sold at Walgreens stores. The 9-inch high Christmas toy bears are sold as “Dressy Teddy Bears” and come with 4-ounce chocolate bars that are believed to contain melamine.

Walgreens has instructed all of its stores to stop selling the teddy bears. Customers who have already purchased one of the bears, which have been sold in Walgreens since late September of this year, should return them to the store immediately for a full refund.

The UPS number on the bears is 047475864485. The merchandise tag on the bears is 291332.

Although Walgreens has not received any reports of illnesses related to the teddy bears, the FDA tested the product and found that some samples of the chocolate were contaminated with melamine.

Melamine is a colorless and tasteless substance that gives food the appearance of being protein-rich when illegally added. It is commonly used in a number of industrial applications but is not approved for human or animal consumption in the United States. To date, all of the food contaminated with melamine has been manufactured in China or Taiwan or has an ingredient (usually milk based) that originated in China or Taiwan.

The Chinese government has found that certain Chinese companies were adding melamine to food products as a means of cutting costs and giving them false nutritional value. Contaminated products from China have been blamed for countless pet injuries and deaths in the U.S. in the past. More recently, more than 52,000 children in China have fallen ill because of melamine consumption, leading to more than 12,000 hospitalizations and numerous deaths.

For a list of other products that have tested positive for melamine contamination, go here for a list.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under News, recalled products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.