Press Releases
SFH on melamine incident
Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and
Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session after attending a radio
programme today (September 27):
Reporter: Do you think the permissible level of melamine in food should be
lower?
Secretary for Food and Health: No. At the moment, because we take a lot of time
analysing the international standards that are given by the European Union as
well as by the United States, before we set this limit. In fact, there is no law
anywhere in the world that actually set the limit for food, apart from Hong
Kong. When we actually gazette the regulation, we set the limit which is more
stringent than some of the permissible daily intake that is given by the United
States. So, at the moment, we set the limit for milk and infant formulae and
also any foods that are provided by children under 36 months at one milligram
per kilogram of food. For other food, we set at 2.5 milligram per kilogram. You
can see that from the last few days, there are a few other countries also set
the standard. Most of them actually set higher than us. In Singapore, they set
at 5. In New Zealand, they also set at 5 and Taiwan they set at 2.5. We feel
that we are already adopting a much more stringent standard than many other
countries. Of course, that would also mean some of the products we found that
are above our legal limit might not be above the legal limit of other countries.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary for Food and Health: We have analysed the possibility of suppliers as
well as safety. The first consideration is safety. For infant, we have set it in
a very stringent manner. I think that now our law can protect our children as
well as all our citizens in both the infant formulae as well as other food. This
is a very satisfactory law as far as we are concerned. Of course, we will be
taking account of the scientific discovery in the coming months and years and
see whether there is any need to adjust the level. But at the moment, we didn't
need to do that.
(Please also refer to the Chinese session of the transcript)
Ends/Saturday, September 27, 2008
Issued at HKT 13:41
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