THE NEWS:
3-year-old boy critical after 'vetsin' meal
07/31/2008
Online news site Visayan Daily Star (www.visayandailystar.com) reported on Thursday that Wilfredo Labajo Jr. was rushed to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital , two days after he ate rice mixed with vetsin at their home in Bato village in Sagay City
The victim’s father, Wilfredo Labajo Sr., said the boy and his sister Jerelyn, 9, put MSG into their plain corn rice as the family could not afford regular rice or any proper viand. Labajo, an "ice buko" vendor, said he and his wife Jenelyn, had prepared the rice for their children before leaving them with neighbors when they went out to sell their products.
The boy, who was first brought to the Alfredo Marañon District Hospital
Monosodium glutamate is a flavor enhancer commonly added to food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. It has been reported to have adverse affects when taken in large amount but researchers have found no evidence so far showing that it could cause illness.
Monosodium glutamate, also known as sodium glutamate and MSG, is a sodium salt of the non-essential amino acid glutamic acid. It is used as a food additive and is commonly marketed as a flavour enhancer. It has the HS code 29224220 and the E number E621. Trade names of monosodium glutamate include Ajinomoto, Vetsin, and Accent.
Although traditional Asian cuisine uses flavour-enhancing ingredients which contain high concentrations of MSG, it was not isolated until 1907. MSG was subsequently patented by the Japanese Ajinomoto Corporation in 1909. In its pure form, it appears as a white crystalline powder; when dissolved in water (or saliva) it rapidly dissociates into sodium cations and glutamate anions (glutamate is the anionic form of glutamic acid, a naturally occurring amino acid).
In April 1968, Ho Man Kwok wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine where he said, "I have experienced a strange syndrome whenever I have eaten out in a Chinese restaurant, especially one that served northern Chinese food. The syndrome, which usually begins 15 to 20 minutes after I have eaten the first dish, lasts for about two hours, without hangover effect. The most prominent symptoms are numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitations...". This comment began a global health scare about monosodium glutamate and "Chinese restaurant syndrome" was born. Research has failed to prove that monosodium glutamate affects a large percentage of the population, and Chinese restaurant syndrome is largely resigned to urban legend status. However, monosodium glutamate is still thought of as suspect by a large proportion of the general public, and many foods continue to be labeled "MSG free".
In 1959, the FDA classified monosodium glutamate as a "generally recognized as safe", or GRAS, substance.[5] This action stemmed from the 1958 Food Additives Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which required premarket approval for new food additives and led the FDA to promulgate regulations listing substances, such as monosodium glutamate, which have a history of safe use or are otherwise GRAS. Since 1970, FDA has sponsored extensive reviews on the safety of monosodium glutamate, other glutamates and hydrolyzed proteins, as part of an ongoing review of safety data on GRAS substances used in processed foods. One such review was by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Select Committee on GRAS Substances. In 1980, the committee concluded that monosodium glutamate was safe at current levels of use but recommended additional evaluation to determine monosodium glutamate's safety at significantly higher levels of consumption. Additional reports attempted to look at this. In 1986, FDA's Advisory Committee on Hypersensitivity to Food Constituents concluded that monosodium glutamate poses no threat to the general public but that reactions of brief duration might occur in some people. Other reports have given the following findings:
- The 1987 Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization placed monosodium glutamate in the safest category of food ingredients.
- A 1991 report by the European Community's (EC) Scientific Committee for Foods reaffirmed monosodium glutamate's safety and classified its "acceptable daily intake" as "not specified", the most favourable designation for a food ingredient. In addition, the EC Committee said, "Infants, including prematures, have been shown to metabolize glutamate as efficiently as adults and therefore do not display any special susceptibility to elevated oral intakes of glutamate."
- A 1992 report from the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association stated that glutamate in any form has not been shown to be a "significant health hazard".
- A 1995 FDA-commissioned report by the FASEB confirmed the safety assessments of the aforementioned Committees, but stated that an unknown percentage of the population may react to monosodium glutamate and develop a monosodium glutamate symptom complex when consuming more than 3 gram of monosodium glutamate alone. The report compiled several, mostly very non-specific and common, symptoms from anecdotal reports, including burning sensation in the back of the neck, forearms and chest, numbness in the back of the neck, radiating to the arms and back, tingling, warmth and weakness in the face, temples, upper back, neck and arms, facial pressure or tightness, chest pain, headache, nausea, rapid heartbeat, bronchospasm, drowsiness, weakness, and sweating.[6]
- A 2002 report found that rats fed on diets supplemented with 10% and 20% pure monosodium glutamate suffered retina degeneration, possibly through glutamate accumulation in the vitreous humour. However, such extreme amounts are more than one order of magnitude higher than those used for flavoring or found in foods.
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