MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (Banning of use in baby-food preparations)

Dr Augustine H. H. Tan asked the Minister for Health, in view of the possible brain-damage to babies, if his Ministry will consider banning the use of monosodium glutamate in baby-food preparations.

The Minister for Health (Mr Chua Sian Chin): Sir, the Member for Whampoa might have based his suggestion that monosodium glutamate should be banned from baby-food preparations on a report by a Dr J. W. Olney, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, that infant mice injected under the skin with large amounts of monosodium glutamate or MSG developed brain damage.

I would like to explain here that Dr Olney's conclusion was challenged by Mr Oser, a biochemist, who is also a member of the United States National Academy of Science Committee on Food Protection. Mr Oser claimed that Dr Olney's observations did not have any relevance to the question of the safety of MSG as a food seasoning agent largely because the MSG was injected under the skin of mice. The critical experiments, he said, should involve feeding MSG orally to the animals. Dr Olney's experiments had also been done by using doses far in excess of what has been normally used.

An Expert Committee jointly formed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation on Food Additives was, however, not able to evaluate the evidence and come to specific conclusions in 1970. The report, which appeared in the W.H.O. Technical Report, Series No. 445 at page 20, paragraph 3.4 is as follows:

`Glutamic acid is a normal constituent of dietary proteins and also occurs freely in many natural foods. It is itself used as a condiment and is an important constituent of other condiments (e.g. soy sauce). The present state of knowledge concerning monosodium glutamate was reviewed. Although attention has recently been drawn to adverse acute effects from ingestion of foods high in free glutamate content the Committee considers that it is unable to advise any restriction on use at the present time. It was considered that self-limitation of intake of foods containing glutamate by susceptible individuals would be possible. Since there is a considerable amount of work in progress the Committee postponed evaluations of this compound as a food additive until the results of the current work are available.'

The Expert Committee reported a year later, in 1971, that although the weight of evidence does not support the contention that monosodium glutamate as an additive in the diet can lead to brain damage in humans, caution is desirable. The food manufacturers, however, have decided to play it safe. In 1969, the manufacturers of baby foods in North America imposed a voluntary ban on it and British firms followed later.

Since these countries are the main sources of baby foods imported into Singapore, it would not be necessary to take any other action with regard to banning of this additive in baby foods in Singapore.

Further, if we are to ban the use of monosodium glutamate in baby food preparations, the relevant question that will arise will be how effective it will be in actual practice. Can we, for instance, control its use in food preparations at home which may be given to children and babies? Another relevant question is that if it has ill effects on the brain of humans, which is questionable, why should the restriction of its use be limited to baby foods only, since the human brain is known to continue development right up to full maturity, which is at the age of 20 to 25 years? Thus, for the move of banning it to be logical and effective in practice, you must ban it completely, that is, by banning its importation and manufacture, which clearly does not merit it in this case.

However, in order to be on the cautious side, all our Maternal and Child Health Clinics have been instructed to warn mothers against the excessive use of monosodium glutamate as well as to actively discourage them from using it at all when preparing baby foods.