Delay over baby milk findings a 'shambles'

The Department of Health insisted yesterday that it was safe to use formula milk as pressure grew on the Government to name the brands affected by so-called "gender-bender" chemicals.

Doctors, politicians and consumer groups have now called on the Ministry of Agriculture to publish the results of tests which have shown that nine leading brands contained levels of phthalates which have been linked to impaired fertility.

When similar levels of the chemicals, used in plastic softening, were administered to baby rats in tests by the Medical Research Council their testicles were damaged and sperm counts were reduced.

But the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jeremy Metters said yesterday saying there was no need to be concerned.

"The Department of Health has seen the papers and there is no cause for alarm. Mothers should continue to use the infant formula that they have been feeding their babies."

So far tests have been carried out on nine leading brands, which all contained phthalates. The environmental pressure group Greenpeace yesterday called for all baby milk brands to be tested. Tim Boswell, the junior agriculture minister, agreed this was a possibility: "Obviously we need to go on and do a more thorough study."

But Labour's consumer spokesman Nigel Griffiths said the Government's response had been a "shambles."

"How can it be that a Government department knew two months ago that a plastic softening chemical had got into manufactured baby milk at higher than permitted levels, yet the source has not been tracked down and the minister refuses to give the names of the manufacturers," he said. "Instead he's giving the manufacturers another month or two to discover how this material got into the food chain. What a shambles."

Helena Charlton, secretary of the Infant and Dietetic Food Association, said she believed that all the major manufacturers and brands had been tested The companies had met twice with Maff and the plastics industry in an attempt to identify the source of the phthalates.

"We agreed it was going to be very difficult to locate the source," she said. "We've pretty much eliminated packaging as they do not use those chemicals anymore. We looked at the sacks that the raw materials came in, we also considered whether it was possible they were coming in from the tubing that carries the milk.

"We even looked at the white overalls and wellingtons which are worn in factories in case they could have come into contact with the food source . . . We looked at whether it was in the rain which fell on the grass which the cows ate. It's going to be a long hard slog and I think we'll find it comes into many aspects of the food chain."

The immediate problem that mothers face is that while they do not want to feed their babies milk high in phthalates, the alternatives carry their own separate risks.

The Department of Health's official advice is that unmodified cow's milk should not be given to any child under one because of the risk of allergies.