Baby food israel

Israeli health ministry officials face charges relating to faulty baby formula

Nearly five years after an imported baby formula that was lacking in thiamin (vitamin B₁) allegedly caused beriberi in Israeli babies fed solely with the product, eight people, including a senior health ministry physician, have been indicted for causing the deaths by negligence of three infants and severe or potentially severe injury in more than 20 others.

The kosher, soya based powder, prepared solely for Israel by the German company Humana, did not include a thiamin supplement in a new formula it began manufacturing in 2003 (bmj.com, 15 Nov 2003, News Extra doi: 10.1136/bmj.327.7424.1128-i).

Although senior officials in the Israeli import company Remedia allegedly knew (according to the indictment) that Humana had decided to stop adding the vitamin, they did nothing about it and did not inform the health ministry. It is also claimed that Remedia continued to use an out of date label for the product in which thiamin appeared in the list of ingredients, even though it was not present.

The indictments were issued after a long investigation and deliberations involving the ministry and others. The Remedia defendants are company owner Moshe Miller, general manager Gideon Landsberger, and quality control manager Frederick Black.

The state also charged Mr Landsberger and Mr Miller with obstructing justice in relation to allegations of paying off company employees who were questioned by police. The state attorney’s office claims that Mr Black was one of the employees that the other two defendants tried to pay off and that he changed his testimony to protect his employers.

The defendants in the health ministry are Dorit Nitzan-Kaluski, who headed the national food service, and four inspectors at Haifa and Ashdod ports who are said to have been responsible for releasing imported food from quarantine. The indictment concluded: “Nitzan-Kaluski did not supervise or examine how her instructions were being implemented and whether they were carried out in such a way as to safeguard the safety of the imported food and public health.

“Because of her actions, an atmosphere was created in which minimal examinations, if any, were carried out by the inspectors at the ports.”

Dr Nitzan-Kaluski left Israel not long after the scandal to become the World Health Organization’s representative in Serbia and Montenegro, where she continues to live.

In 2004 Humana reached an out of court settlement with the families that reportedly totalled between $16m (£8.2m; €10.3m) and $22m, making it among Israel’s largest—and speediest—settlements arising from a manufacturer’s alleged negligence. After the scandal erupted the then health minister, Dan Naveh, decided that baby food would be given a higher level of supervision, equivalent to that applied to pharmaceutical products.

Speaking through an Israeli public relations adviser, Dr Nitzan-Kaluski said after the indictment was announced that “the great pain of the affected families remains with me all the time.”

She said, “Every night I see the faces of the babies . . . As a mother and grandmother, a paediatrician specialising in gastroenterology and child nutrition with years of experience, my sorrow is great and even more stinging.”

She said that after children appeared in hospitals with unusual symptoms and she realised that all had been fed only on the soya based formula, she ordered the product’s removal from store shelves and called for a police investigation. She maintained that even though the ministry had approved the import of the formula, Remedia had not informed her that the ingredients had been changed, “turning it into another product.”

“It is impossible,” she concluded, “to examine thousands of products for all their constituents.”

The health ministry said after the indictments were announced that it was sorry about the decision to prosecute ministry officials and expressed hope that their “innocence would be proved without doubt.” It also expressed concern that the decision to prosecute its officials “is liable to have serious implications for the ministry’s regulation and supervision processes. ”

Police in Israel launch investigation into deaths of babies given formula milk

The Israel police have launched a criminal investigation into the deaths from beriberi of two infants and the hospitalisation of 13 more who since August were fed a German made, non-dairy, baby formula made for sale only in Israel.

The special line of soya based formula—found by Israel's health ministry to "totally lack" the vital vitamin B-1 (thiamine)—was produced by the Humana company in Herford, Germany, one of the largest baby food manufacturers in Europe with an annual turnover of €3bn (£2.1bn;$1.2bn).

After two days of insistent denials of any error or wrongdoing, Humana finally took "technical and scientific responsibility" for the failure.

The company's chairman, Albert Grossa Fray, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the company believed the amount of thiamine found naturally in the soya beans was sufficient and that no synthetic vitamin needed to be added.

But Humana claimed that Remedia, the Israeli importer of the baby formula, had asked for this change. Senior Remedia officials denied this, saying they had been "misled" by the German company and had only asked for a "minor change of the fat components" of the non-dairy formula, but were unaware that the manufacturer had made a major change and eliminated the B-1 vitamin enrichment.

Fray said the formula sent to Israel contained "10 times less" the amount of thiamine as stated on the formula's container; the amount of vitamin B-1 in the formula amounted to 29 to 37 micrograms per 100 g, while the label said it had only 385 micrograms per 100 g.

The company called the lack of the optimum level of vitamin a "terrible mistake" but emphasised that this one-time error did not affect any of the company's other products.

The Israeli health ministry's director general, Dr Boaz Lev, charged that not only Humana was responsible, but also Remedia (51% of which is owned by the US based company H J Heinz) for having not informed the ministry of changes in the composition of the formula.

"Even a minor change required that we be informed and that Remedia apply for a new licence for the formula, as it is considered a new product."

But Remedia said that it had "no clue" that Humana removed the vitamin, and claimed that the change in fats—apparently to expand the market to older babies—was only a minor one that didn't require reapplication.

Dr Lev said that the lack of thiamine in the packaged formula constituted "fraud" as this vital component was listed on the label.

The problem started when doctors at Schneider Medical Centre for Israel in Petah Tikva (the largest children's hospital in the Middle East) noted that three infants had been admitted with encephalopathy within a week.

Ministry epidemiologists examined more than a dozen recent infant encephalopathy cases and found a common denominator: All had been exclusively or mainly fed the non-dairy Remedia formula.

Although beriberi is unknown in the Western world, a doctor at a Tel Aviv hospital identified it in a 9 month old baby admitted with encephalopathy and informed the ministry of the connection. Nine of the 10 babies still hospitalised have substantially improved after getting vitamin B-1 injections.

But Professor Tommy Scheinfeld, head of Schneider's intensive care unit, said there are no data in the medical literature on the long term effects of severe thiamine deficiency in Western babies; infants in the developing world develop beriberi and die quickly due to malnutrition and poor environmental conditions.

Premium baby food from Israel

01/01/1970 Rassadina Zinaida Vladimirovna

Articles

Premium baby food from Israel

Now you can buy MATERNA baby food in Russia too. These are milk mixtures, cereals and purees that...

These are milk mixtures, cereals and purees, which have been produced in Israel since 1981 under the supervision of the Ministry of Health and the Chief Rabbinate of the country.

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Author: Rassadina Zinaida Vladimirovna Pediatrician, experience - 14 years

What baby food is available in Israel? / Children / Children, family, life / Questions for specialists / Israel / Orbita.Profi

Questions >> Children, family, life >> Children

What kind of baby food is available in Israel?

I am going on vacation with a one-year-old child to Netanya for 3 months, I have a question what kind of baby food is presented in Israel. My baby eats meat, vegetable, fruit purees from Semper, Gerber, Hipp, Heinz cereals, and at the same time hypoallergenic. Are there such brands, and if not, what do you replace them with? Also a question about diapers using Japanese ones, are there any for sale ?, and if not, what are they?

Author: Oxana , city: Netanya, publication date: 00:12, 06/24/10

Replies:

Nail extension and cosmetology in Krayot

Type of activity: Beauticians, Manicure, Pedicure, Hairdressers you wrote. I don't think you need to worry about this, because we have a wide selection of baby food and everything else for small children. The main thing is that your child drinks enough water.

Answer published: 12:12, 06/25/10

The author of the question published an addition:

THANKS for the answer, I have another question - my child is allergic to cow's protein, so is it possible to find goat's milk, turkey or rabbit meat in Israel for sale?

Supplement published: 22:10, 06/28/10

Spiritual development. Education.

Type of activity: Psychologists, Courses, schools and seminars

Answer:
Turkey and chicken meat is the main meat sold in Israel :)
Goat milk is sold directly in supermarkets and various cheeses from them are also sold directly in super stores.
In Hebrew there will be goat's milk: "chalav ezim"
and cheese "gvinat ezim"

Answer published: 14:02, 06/30/10

Activity:

Answer:
All supermarkets and Super-Pharm chains (cosmetics + products for children and pharmacy) sell soy-based bottle mixes (without cow protein). A very rich selection of various cereals from the company "Materna" Israel and others. I brew cereals either with milk (goat, in your case) or simply with water. I recommend diapers from the Pampers company, we have tested them - they are suitable for the local climate + diaper cream.