Tainted Milk Issue
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This tainted milk issue has been around for three years. I just wonder if AVA is as vigilance as it claimed on its website, why this problem is not detected earlier?
Why is it always only when incident happens then we see our government body in action?
So much for the vigilance.
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AVA these year bonuses AWS+2 months, that is what they detected
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must work with HSA to solve...
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lalalala
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AVA now plenty of work to do liao
or else pretty free
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Originally posted by since1976:
This tainted milk issue has been around for three years. I just wonder if AVA is as vigilance as it claimed on its website, why this problem is not detected earlier?
Why is it always only when incident happens then we see our government body in action?
So much for the vigilance.
our govt is well known for blowing its trumpet.
didn't nea insisted that its researcher couldn't have contracted sars from its lab as it followed stringent safety procedures religiously? independent investigations subsequently revealed that there were indeed lapses in the procedures.
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Thanks for the info. So it means that AVA is not only a very reactive government organization...but playing a more passive role. Then it should not use the "vigilance" wording in its website because it is not the natural behaviour of the organizarion. Claiming something that it is not is utterly disgraceful. I am so disappointed with the entire performance of AVA in this mishap.
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I started to question, did they check on every foods stuff in Singapore? Why everytime other countries detected first?
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Originally posted by sunnytv:
I started to question, did they check on every foods stuff in Singapore? Why everytime other countries detected first?
not every, just some sample per batches...
and they r more concern for the vegetables e.g. pasir panjang wholesale centre/jurong fishery port and fresh food stuff... e.g. fruits -
They should check throughly esp. from china batches. Worst still, the samples they pick cannot detect anything.
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Originally posted by since1976:
Thanks for the info. So it means that AVA is not only a very reactive government organization...but playing a more passive role. Then it should not use the "vigilance" wording in its website because it is not the natural behaviour of the organizarion. Claiming something that it is not is utterly disgraceful. I am so disappointed with the entire performance of AVA in this mishap.
ava isn't the only one. doesn't one agency still insist that it is providing subsidied housing when a private contractor revealed that it could build the same accomodation at a lower price?
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Originally posted by sunnytv:
I started to question, did they check on every foods stuff in Singapore? Why everytime other countries detected first?
Can you imagine every single apple you are eating has been tested by a needle before?
And this time, China detected it because they got problems first mah...
But anyway, time to get MC!
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Originally posted by eagle:
Can you imagine every single apple you are eating has been tested by a needle before?
And this time, China detected it because they got problems first mah...
But anyway, time to get MC!
lucky we get to know of the toxic products now, while it is still early.if this melamine scandal goes on uncovered for some more years, we will be getting DCs instead (Death Certs)
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think alot of countries also couldn't detect right?
but i'm quite unhappy at china people's greed and deception.
can't trust them.
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Melamine Contamination Problem - Beyond Milk
From: Law Sin Ling
22 September 2008
Melamine Contamination Problem - Beyond Milk
Sg_ReviewThere are signs to suggest, following the actions taken by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore in the face of the melamine scandal, that the agency has much to do towards gaining a higher degree of faith from the public.
The first concrete sniff of the recent scandal broke clean when the Centre For Food Safety of Hong Kong detected and released results of their tests between the 15 and 16 September.
AVA announced on the 17 September the recall of Yili products pending tests by AVA. AVA also stated that it was conducting tests on "other imported milk and dairy products from China".
2 days later, AVA confirmed the contamination of Yili yogurt and Dutch Lady milk, and declared a cessation of import and sale of all milk and milk products from China.
On the same day, AVA issued a letter in the TODAY newspaper titled "Milk, dairy products safe: AVA" which bewilderingly stated that "milk and dairy products sold in Singapore are safe for consumption" even as AVA was conducting more tests for particular products from China.
This is a major gaffe as the AVA created confusion over whether products unsafe for sale are safe for consumption, no thanks to their inability to communicate their point unambiguously.
On the 21 September, AVA then announced that following the confirmed contamination of a third product (the popular White Rabbit Creamy Candy), a suspension was imposed on the import and sale of all milk and milk products from China including "milk, ice-cream, yoghurt, confectionery such as chocolates, biscuits and sweets".
AVA has failed to appreciate that most consumers would not automatically draw a relation between tainted milk from China, and sweets and biscuits (collectively called confectionery). This is especially since confectionery is not typically classified under dairy products.
Hence, the late explicit inclusion of confectionery 4 days after the first notice demonstrated the detrimental tunnel vision of AVA. So is the public to be told of potential problems with other products containing milk from China such as cakes, dougnuts, beverage powder (Milo, Ovaltine, etc), salad dressings, certain soups, and even certain food emulsifier and natural flavouring, only after AVA has completed their findings?
If AVA had reasons to suspect since the onset that all products using dairy ingredients from China may be implicated, a comprehensive statement with a broad coverage of suspected products should have been made public without waiting for the results of their tests.
There is no harm in transparently alerting the public to real and possible dangers while the AVA cautiously conducts investigations. On the other hand, failure to do so would make the actions of the AVA look reactionary and knee-jerk in nature.
Poor communication inevitably leads to suspicion of excessive introversion and incompetence. Poor planning though has no excuse at that level.
(Mr) Law Sin Ling
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Rabbit sweets toxic, too
Samples of the sweets were found to be contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical that can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure.
How many previous batches of the sweets did AVA passed without having samples tested? Hard to say. Probably samples from every batch that has been imported were tested since time immemorial and had been found to be safe.
Good luck Rabbit sweets lovers.
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Maybe Mr Law's kids love White Rabbit Creamy Candy very much and could have taken quite a fair bit of them.
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I dunno man... On the one hand, u can see china as a cooperative society with national pride and all that, u see the olympics the earth quake incident, they are telling the world they are a united people. But behind the facade, chinese are doing all sorts of evils in the name of money. For goodness sake, china is a communist country, and its behavior is not better than "greedy capitalist pigs", sheesh. Seems to me chinese sees money more than anything else.
China to me is like a country that has split personality, sometime united, sometime selfish, but those are mutually exclusive are'nt they. Or is china putting up a mask to fool the whole world?
So what is china suffering from??? split personality or grave dishonesty.Sorry guys, i know this topic is on AVA, but i think the culprit are the chinese evil merchants.
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What about Japan?
Toxic rice prompts mass Japanese recall
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/
Japan Rice Firm Boss Commits Suicide after Scandal
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Originally posted by Poh Ah Pak:
What about Japan?
Toxic rice prompts mass Japanese recall
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/
Japan Rice Firm Boss Commits Suicide after Scandal
The scandal happened in Japan and stayed in Japan. The authorities should be lauded for making the scandal public.
Any Japanese who is responsible either resign his post or commit suicide.
The Chinese govt has to sack those responsible for the tainted milk scandal.
In Singapore, it's probably 'let's move on'.
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Originally posted by googoomuck:
The scandal happened in Japan and stayed in Japan. The authorities should be lauded for making the scandal public.
Any Japanese who is responsible either resign his post or commit suicide.
The Chinese govt has to sack those responsible for the tainted milk scandal.
In Singapore, it's probably 'let's move on'.
no, it's "no point pointing fingers, but let's work together to prevent this from happening, we cannot sack those responsible, because they are talented yada yada.."
remember mas selamat incident?
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No wonder so many Singaporeans have kidney problem...
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AVA should work from a clean slate. That is, assume that all Chinese food products are un-safe. Next begin to include products that they safely consider safe.
Now, we have a range of China food products allowed here, except the milk products.
I am sceptical of all China food products being safe for consumption. They have consistently shown the world that they have no health standards. They are simply waiting for the next food scare to appear, cover up if possible and then act catch the culprits when the news are blown up. That's been their only strategy. They simply execute a few scapegoats, and wait for the next scare.
I am prepared to pay more for safer food products.
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As much as I feel that AVA should have more alert in stopping the tainted milk from reaching our shores, but if one takes a more rational approach to look at this problem, you can see that AVA is actually more or less an unfortunate scapegoat of this saga.
The qualitative test that was conducted by the food laboratories, is meant to determine the quantity of nitrogen in the milk powder. The Kjeldahl was not designed to detect harmful materials but merely to QA the nitrogen content. To be honest, even if we managed to put a stop to the Sanlu's practise of adding melamine to the milk, there are many other nitrogen based adulterants they can add in to fake the nitrogen content. Examples will be like those compounds with amine functional groups like pyridine, pyrilidone, triamine, diamine substances and the list is unexhausive. These substance have also high nitrogen lvl due to the NH2 groups. You can't expect AVA to test for all the thousands of different potentially harmfull organic compounds rite?
What has to tackle now, at international lvl is to send a strong message to PRC. As a growing economic and military power, you must be responsible for your actions. No doubt making profits is important, ethics is also important, bcos you are putting your country's reputation and fame on it. The PRCians should send more time exploring the ethics, morals and spiritual part of life. Yes, you can have an olympic opening that is touted to be the best and the most extravagent, but yet you can't even assure the interest of your commoners are protected e.g. shroudy construction in Szechuan earthquake killing many school children.........
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I don't think an unfortunate scapegoat is a good excuse. the Minister for Health, HSA and AVA director should step up and apologise to the public for their negligence.