Canada recalls White Rabbit candies over melamine concerns
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Health officials in Hong Kong and Singapore said they have found trace amounts of melamine in White Rabbit candies. (Emily Chung/CBC) Canadians should not eat, distribute or sell White Rabbit brand candy, a popular Chinese confection that may be tainted with melamine, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned Thursday. The candy is normally available for sale at retail stores throughout Canada in a variety of flavours, the agency said. Health officials in Hong Kong and Singapore said they have found trace amounts of melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer, in some of the candy. The Canadian alert advised importers and distributors to voluntarily recall the products, and retailers to remove it from their shelves. The CFIA said it is working with importers to remove the candy from the marketplace and to monitor the effectiveness of the recall. There have been no reports of illness linked to the product in Canada, where melamine is not allowed as a food ingredient. Recalls have been expanded in Europe and Asia, where melamine had already been found in a range of Chinese-made dairy products. In China, melamine-tainted milk has killed four babies and sickened nearly 53,000. Ottawa acted early The candy wasn’t on the shelves of most Ottawa stores Thursday, the city’s public health department reported based on checks by municipal inspectors. Andy Roche, program manager at Ottawa Public Health, said the city decided to act before the CFIA recall, given the level of concern and the results of tests elsewhere. Roche said public health inspectors didn’t find the candy for sale in most stores Thursday, indicating that retailers had pulled it off the shelves themselves as a precaution. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said White Rabbit candy has been added to its list of products being inspected at ports of entry, but that no melamine-tainted goods from China of any sort have turned up. Nonetheless, some grocers in the U.S. started removing the popular candies from their shelves. U.S. and European consumer safety officials urged Beijing to better enforce product safety standards. Other news:
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