In this weeks BMJ,

Sara Bernard, The Netherlands.


http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7425/1186-d?etoc

Manager at baby food company is under investigation for manslaughter
Vienna

Jane Burgermeister
German state prosecutors have launched an investigation into a manager at
the baby food manufacturer Humana after the deaths of two infants in Israel
(BMJ 15 November, News extra).
Harald Krahmüller, spokesman for the state prosecution office in Bielefeld,
North Rhine-Westphalia, said that the head of Humana’s product development
department was expected to be charged with manslaughter and causing grievous
bodily harm after she failed to ensure that a non-dairy baby formula made
for sale only in Israel was submitted to independent quality control
measures.
The police are also questioning other staff at the Herford based company—one
of the largest baby food manufacturers in Europe—after a series of errors
that allowed baby food without vitamin B-1 to go on sale in Israel.
The investigation comes as it emerged that doctors in Germany had lodged a
complaint about Humana’s "totally misleading advertising" in July.
The German Association for Children’s Healthcare and Youth Medicine had
written to the state’s regulatory agency, urging it to use its powers to
scrutinise the standards at the baby food manufacturer.
A paediatrician from the association, Berthold Koletzko, said that the lives
of the infants in Israel could have been saved if the authorities had
implemented a new EU directive ordering all new recipes for baby food to be
submitted to quality control measures at independent laboratories before
being sold.
After the public outcry, authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia have promised
a massive reorganisation of the 18 agencies currently responsible for
scrutinising food standards.
In another blow to Humana, Russia last Thursday announced a ban of all of
Humana’s products, as well as those of Remedia, Humana’s partner in Israel.
The Russian government’s chief epidemiologist, Gennadi Onischtschenko, went
on television to say that Humana and Remedia’s products would be submitted
to independent tests to determine whether they contained enough of the vital
vitamin B-1.

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