Chemists await word on baby-feeders

Press, 25 October 1985, Page 5

Chemists await word on baby-feeders

The Canterbury branch of the Chemists’ Guild has received no official notification from the Health Deement of the list of babying devices the department wants withdrawn from sale.

“I first read which products were unsafe in the paper on Monday morning," said the branch president, Mr John Tavener.

“I was put in a rather embarrassing situation where the branch heard after the public.” The branch received an urgent telephone call on Monday from the guild’s

national office in Wellington suggesting that all products mentioned in the article be removed from pharmacy shelves. Mr Tavener said that as far as he knew there were no sub-standard products on Canterbury shelves, assuming anything not mentioned in the newspaper report was safe. One Christchurch pharmacist, Mr Graham Gyde, of the Riccarton Mall Pharmacy, said he received an urgent telephone call from the Canterbury branch asking him to withdraw the baby-feeding devices.

“There had been a lot of concerned mothers over the last two or three days. Some have refused to buy any type of baby-feed-ing device,” Mr Gyde said.

The baby-feeding products withdrawn from sale have nitrosamine levels higher than the Health Department standard. The new standards for New Zealand do not allow more than 10 parts per billion for each of the possible nitrosamines which can be formed when vulcanising rubber. The total must not exceed 30ppb.