The Malaysian Association of Standards Users and its members are gravely concerned with the contamination of whey protein concentrate with the notorious botulism toxin. The CDC and several other health literatures (and a known fact) states that botulism is a muscle-paralyzing disease caused by a toxin made by a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum.
They also classify botulism into (source CDC):
- Foodborne botulism - occurs when a person ingests pre-formed toxin that leads to illness within a few hours to days. Foodborne botulism is a public health emergency because the contaminated food may still be available to other persons besides the patient.
- Infant botulism occurs in a small number of susceptible infants each year who harbor C. botulinum in their intestinal tract.
- Wound botulism occurs when wounds are infected with C. botulinum that secretes the toxin
About Botulism
CDC also provides information on the symptoms of foodborne botulism such as:
- symptoms appearing between 6 hours to 10 days (most commonly between 12 and 36 hours) after eating food that contains the toxin.
- include double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth, and muscle weakness that moves down the body, usually affecting the shoulders first, then the upper arms, lower arms, thighs, calves, etc.
- paralysis of breathing muscles can cause a person to stop breathing and die, unless assistance with breathing (mechanical ventilation) is provided.
Standards Users concerns
Since this incident affects infant formula besides other products which uses whey protein such as yoghurt, energy drinks, biscuits etc we urge the Food Safety Quality Division to open up several 24 hours helpline than just a media release on its website and newspaper to address public concerns. Our call centers are currently flooded with enquiries and there is no helpline or enough information on the division’s website to address public concern especially parents.
We urge the ministry and the division to publish up to date information either a positive list or negative list of the products involved in this latest incident.
We also urge the division to obtain list of all Fonterra’s customers and also ensure that they do not use or have issued recalls of their products which use whey protein concentrate from Fonterra (similar to what Danone has done). It could be ice-cream or cakes or anything that uses whey protein in their formulation.
We hope that the emergency response system in FSQD and among food and beverage manufacturers and the whole supply chain in Malaysia operates efficiently following lessons learnt and improvement made after the melamine incident in 2008 – which is also associated with Fonterra Group.
Once again, this incident warrants heightened and efficient response and action due to the high risk group involved – namely children, pregnant mothers and also the elderly
Laboratory Capacity
On the same issue, we also urge the upcoming national budget for 2014 – which is expected to be tighter than past year to ensure that there is no compromise in the capacity of the Food Safety Quality Divisions role and tasks to improve food safety in Malaysia. There should be increased allocation to ensure that laboratories and well equipped with both human and materials to handle food surveillance and emergency response situation. We are a net food importing nation and the food import bill keeps swelling making us vulnerable to food safety incidents like this (botulism), melamine and tainted meat and counterfeit products.
If importing food cannot be avoided, our surveillance and emergency response mechanism must be tried and tested to ensure that it is effective all the time.
Food Security
The above does not underestimate the efforts needed to address our dependency on food import such increasing yield of local produce, making them more accessible to Malaysians, increasing agriculture land to produce food for local consumption, anticipating and addressing impacts of climate change and so on.
All those involved in food supply chain from farm to fork (including consumers) need to address issues like wastage running into thousands of tonnes a day, ensuring food safety and making food more accessible and affordable. We look forward to a effective, clear and transparent mechanism to ensure that the above is realized in the very near future rather than later.
Datuk Dr. Marimuthu Nadason
President
Malaysian Association of Standards Users