Saturday, November 26, 2011

Pua stands by KR1M milk powder claim

KUALA LUMPUR: DAP publicity secretary Tony Pua is standing by his claim that milk powder sold at Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) exceeds the permissible Vitamin A content, even though the Health Ministry has deemed it safe.

Pua also refuted a statement from the ministry that he had been misleading the public by giving false information about the quality of products sold by KR1M. "The minister said I had confused the rulings in the Food Regulations Act, and categorised milk powder under Rule 389A (follow-up formula) when I should have categorised it under Rule 395, which means food not elsewhere standardised,” Pua said at press conference at DAP's national headquarters here Friday.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP maintained that even if milk powder were to be categorised under the food regulations laid out by Rule 395, the amount of Vitamin A in KR1M's milk powder was still too high if the recommended level of 480gm a day was adhered to.

"The packaging on KR1M's milk powder recommends four scoops of 30gm for up to four servings a day," Pua said.

"The Health Minister earlier said that every 100gm of milk powder contained 3,240 international units (IU) of Vitamin A.

"This means children would be drinking over 15,000 IU, which is three times above the maximum amount recommended which is 5000 IU," said Pua.

Pua also called for a dialogue with the ministry on Nov 29 to compare findings and find a solution to this and other KR1M products.

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