Friday, October 17, 2008

Poison Biscuits Buatan Malaise-ia - Malaysiakini

Exactly two weeks ago, on Friday, October 3, I blogged about 'melamine cookies' found in Vietnam.  

After dilly-dallying and showing no urgency in exercising his responsibility as a Health Minister to protect the rakyat, the results are out .... Khong Guan and Khian Guan biscuits Buatan Malase-ia are confirmed melamine contaminated!

Between October 3 and today, how many kids have consumed the poison biscuits? How many other products out there are actually contaminated that we are not privileged to know? I still have suspicions as to whatever that's permitted or cleared by the Health Ministry to be sold to the rakyat. 

There is no transparency. I am still waiting for the truths to be told as to who is/are the one/s who's actually conducting all the tests and the procedures. In this country where all rumours are eventually found to be truths, I'm afraid I'm sticking to my opinion that it is the manufacturers who provide the Health Ministry with the test results. I have blogged on this issue too.

Anyway, let's get back to this melamine cookies Buatan Malaise-ia. All eyes were first fixed on Indonesia as the original news mentioned both Malaysia and Indonesia being the exporters. So, OK, Indonesia went ahead to test the said products and after extensive testing, including using the LC MSMS method which has a sensitivity of one part per BILLION, melamine wasn't detected. That means ZERO.

There seems something fishy about this pointing of fingers but I wouldn't dare speculate lest I got whacked with multi-million ringgit suit. I would let you decide for yourself whethere there was some plot. Read here.

However, the question I would raise is this - Why did the Health Ministry waited until Indonesia released its test results to confirm that its products were melamine-free before lifting a finger to conduct test on the melamine biscuits Buatan Malaise-ia? Why?

For the record:

Dated 16/10/08: NST reported that 'Liow said Malaysian-made Khong Guan biscuits were tested as a precautionary measure'. 

Dated 17/10/08: TheStar reported '18 out of 47 products have been found with excessive levels of melamine and the manufacturer has been instructed to recall them'.

Caveat: The Star also reported that the contamination was found in ammonium carbonate. Health Ministry will now conduct tests on all factories using ammonium carbonate. 

Scary thoughts: It only takes some 24 hours to get the results as shown above and that the question we need to ask is that HOW many manufacturers out there are using ammonium carbonate imported from China in the production of biscuits? Scary because the Health Minister has proven itself incompetent in handling this crisis.

This Kanasai Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai has no shame at all! If he has, he would have tendered his resignation weeks ago! 

Therefore, I ain't calling for his resignation this time knowing he has no shame!

The Melamine-tainted Biscuits, released by Health Ministry after procrastination in conducting tests:

Khong Guan
1. Biskut Soda
2. Biskut Lemon Puff
3. Biskut Lemon Pof
4. Biskut Butter Cream
5. Biskut Baby Fish
6. Biskut Healthy Cracker
7. Biskut Cocoa Puff
8. Biskut Sandwich Oren
9. Biskut Family Crackers
10. Biskut Bentuk Binatang
11. Biskut Rokok
12. Biskut Mini Puff

Khian Guan
1. Biskut Creamy Chocolate
2. Biskut Lemon Puff
3. Biskut Square Puff
4. Biskut Cocoa Puff
5. Biskut Jagung Puff

I personally believe that the list doesn't stop here and it could be a mile long and therefore I would strongly suggest parents to take their kids and toddlers for a check-up. We've been had for this long and the best assurance that our kids and toddlers are not 'poisoned' would be to go for a check-up.

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