KUALA LUMPUR, 18 Nov 2008: The Health Ministry accepts the clearance given by Singaporean laboratories for locally-manufactured biscuits tested for melamine, Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said today.
He said even test results from Singaporean private labs would be accepted, as long as they were recognised by the Singaporean government.
“As long as they are conducting the tests for melamine content through the liquid chromatography double mass (LCMSMS) method and these are recognised by the Singaporean government, it shouldn’t be a problem,” he said when contacted by Bernama today.
He said even test results from private labs in Malaysia were accepted, as long as the labs had the facility to measure melamine through the LCMSMS method and were recognised by the Malaysian government.
The LCMSMS method measures melamine content by parts per million.
Yesterday, MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek suggested accepting the results of the Singaporean labs for melamine-content testing of locally-made biscuits as the results could be retrieved faster.
The former health minister said that after the regional melamine scare due to contaminated milk from China, local biscuit manufacturers were required to obtain a clearance certificate stating that their products were free from melamine at any one of the five laboratories assigned by the Health Ministry.
However, tests conducted by any of the five labs took two weeks, forcing the biscuit manufacturers to fork out extra money to store their products prior to obtaining the certificate, compared to two days at the Singaporean laboratories. — Bernama
