Since the beginning of winter, infant formula contaminated with cereulide has caused several infant deaths in France.
To address this, European health authorities, already seized since December, have issued a new decision that took effect this Thursday, February 25, namely a strengthening of customs controls.
Thus, all customs services of European countries will have to inspect at least half of the imports of the incriminated substance. Known as arachidonic acid, it is an essential fatty acid used in the development of neurons, and it is this substance that was contaminated by the cereulide Bacillus.
The responsibility of the Chinese company supplying arachidonic acid has not yet been officially established, but it is indeed the imports from China that European customs will be responsible for monitoring.
In this regard, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had already decided to quadruple the alert threshold for the presence of cereulide in infant formula for infants, that is, babies under four months old.
As a reminder, as of December 12, the European RASFF system had been activated by the Netherlands; this rapid alert system for food safety involved eight European countries including Italy, Poland, and Spain – it led to consumer warnings, recalls of products, and withdrawals from the market.
