Prime Minister John Key
says it is "very, very odd" Fonterra allowed production of infant
formula to continue after finding Clostridium in its product in March.
During question time in the House this afternoon,
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman asked Mr Key why it took so long for
the red flag to be raised over the infant formula.
Mr Key said he assumed the company believed it was not an issue until it notified the Ministry for Primary Industries on Friday.
But he did not know why it took from Wednesday when
Fonterra confirmed of the botulism strain in the infant formula until
12:35pm on Friday when MPI was notified.
"I can't explain that gap in time."
He said that would be an issue for later inquiries into the incident.
"One can only assume that Fonterra
certainly don't want to do damage to itself and its customers.
Therefore if that really had set the alarm bells ringing they would have
assumed they would have acted much faster than they did."
Following
the initial positive test for Clostridium, which was partly done in
Australia, Nutricia, the makers of the affected Karicare products,
carried out more tests, Mr Key said.
"But it was only really of Wednesday last week that the company was sure that it had a potentially very serious problem."
3 News http://www.3news.co.nz/Botulism-scare-timeline-unclear---Key/tabid/1607/articleID/307836/Default.aspx
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