Remove banned food products from shelves, says Jerip

KUCHING: An assistant minister has called for all food products containing high levels of antibiotics to be removed from shelves.

Assistant public health minister Dr Jerip Susil said consumption of chloramphenicol in large amounts was harmful to health.

He was commenting on the state veterinary authority's recent suspension of the import of whole chicken and other poultry products from peninsula-based Ayamas Food Corporation Sdn Bhd after laboratory tests showed that chicken frankfurter from the company contained the antibiotic, chloramphenicol.

The ban came into effect on Nov 1.

“The sample contained more (chloramphenicol) than the normal level,” he said yesterday.

Dr Jerip appealed to retailers to abide by the suspension order.

Meanwhile, Ayamas said the suspension order had caught the company by surprise.

“This is because we do not use chloramphenicol or other banned antibiotics in our system or during the production of our products.

“Our routine internal tests also did not reveal any evidence of usage of such antibiotics in the raw materials that we use,” the company said in a press statement.

Ayamas said it would carry out a thorough investigation into the matter.