Melamine test results out today… hopefully

BY GERARD NAVAL

RESULTS of laboratory tests for melamine contamination might be available today, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said yesterday.

He said the Bureau of Food and Drugs is speeding up the tests to appease the public amid the scare of melamine-contaminated milk from China.

"Best effort … we will try to come out with the result tomorrow (Friday)," he said.

Duque said has told BFAD to come out with a list of products contaminated with the industrial chemical and a separate list of those tested negative.

BFAD on Friday last week came out with an "initial" list of 54 milk and milk products, including popular brands that it said were being tested for melamine, although these products did not originate from China. The following day, it removed four of the products from the list, saying their manufacturers had told BFAD their products and raw materials are sourced from New Zealand and not China.

Some 54,000 Chinese have fallen ill from the contaminated milk, with four infants dying after developing kidney stones.

Duque, at the sidelines of a Senate hearing on the health department’s budget, said the melamine reference standard which the government ordered from Singapore for the laboratory tests arrived Monday, or three days earlier than expected.

BFAD director Leticia Gutierrez, in a circular, encouraged the public to have products they are consuming tested by "recognized laboratories."

Trade Secretary Peter Favila said BFAD is looking at around 15 private laboratories to help in the testing because the agency has insufficient manpower.

The list of laboratories will soon be made public by BFAD, said Favila, a member of the six-agency team formed to handle the melamine issue. The team is headed by Duque.

Favila said some companies are asking for the government’s help as their sales were going down even if their products are not using raw materials from China.

In South Korea, authorities said they have found trace amounts of melamine in milk products imported from New Zealand that were used in baby formula.

Seoul banned their import, said the Korea Food and Drug Administration.

In a statement, it said the product, lactoferrin, was produced by Tatua Cooperative Diary Company of New Zealand.

South Korea was banning all other products made by the company pending further tests, it said.

No trace of the chemical has been found in 19 baby formula products tested, presumably because the additive makes up less than 0.1 percent of the final product, the agency said.

No comment was immediately available from Tauta, which on Monday had suspended exports of lactoferrin because of the melamine find. The company was also checking where its product had been exported to and trying to trace the source of the melamine contamination.

"There’s quite a lot of sensitivity around melamine even at low levels," chief executive Paul McGilvary told the NZ Press Association at the time.

He said the New Zealand Food Safety Authority had found fewer than four parts per million of melamine in the Tatua product, and found there was no contamination of the company’s milk supply.

South Korea has banned the imports of Chinese milk powder and rice cookies produced in China. It has also recalled tainted products from store shelves. – With Dennis Gadil, Jocelyn Montemayor and Reuter