YOURSAY ‘Will the authorities conduct an inquiry, reveal the mistake made?’

Authorities now say no pig DNA in Cadbury

RATBATBLUE: This is a serious matter, serious enough for Cadbury to seek legal redress against the agency that went ballistic prematurely, relying on unsubstantiated evidence that certain chocolates by Cadbury contained porcine DNA.

Serious enough for some "holier than thou" NGOs to root to burn the factory down (just like that) and also shopkeepers discarding the so called "contaminated" articles. Now, how come everybody is quiet?

Who would have compensated the company, had the NGOs had their way? I’m sure those shopkeepers will be kicking themselves over lost money due to their hasty action.

As usual, nobody in authority will take the blame for this fiasco. Was it an election diversion? Possible. Cadbury has to come out with a statement, saying how much hardship this irresponsible action has caused its management and employees.

Moonraker: Will the authorities conduct an inquiry and reveal how the mistake was made? Reputations, businesses, livelihoods and relationships have been harmed by the mistake.

A cynical view: no admission of wrongdoing will be made by the authorities unless they are threatened with some Islamic punishments. They will blame everybody except themselves.

What are the big-mouthed fanatics pretending to be heroes of their religion doing now? They have brought the country even closer to a civil war. Will the Muslims who have kindness, civility and caution in them speak out and shut up these fanatics?

BBBTT: Cadbury should sue them since the company’s name has been tainted by this report. Now all Muslims will be wary of Cadbury products, even if further tests are negative. Even a public apology will not change this negative perception.

MA: Cadbury must sue until it scrapes the last bottom ringgit from these hypocrites who give Islam a bad name. Please, Cadbury, you need not kowtow to the powers-to-be to settle this issue amicably.

Sue them and expose all these self-righteous Islamic zealots. If Cadbury does not sue, we will have no respect for Cadbury.

Basically: This reminds me of an incident many years ago when it was revealed in Taiwan that a major manufacturer of vegetarian products, which are imported here, actually used real meat (deliberately).

While there was major consternation, nobody took to the streets or mounted angry protests. It was enough that Taiwanese products took severe beating in the marketplace. I remember a Buddhist lady lamenting how she had been fooled into consuming the meat for so many years.

What I remember best is the reply from one of my friends to her: Being vegetarian is not in the stomach, but in the heart. This phrase sounds better in Mandarin.

She was very happy to have heard that and said she was deeply consoled. I think there is a lesson here for our angry chocolate fans.

Funny 1M: Many years ago, a chicken processing factory in Lumut faced a similar problem. Later, it was found that some of the workers demanded pay increases, which the management did not agree to.

They then reported that the chicken was not slaughtered according to Islamic requirements and the plant was closed for three weeks.

Speaking sense: New advertisement for Cadbury: "No Muslim was contaminated in the making of this chocolate." Signed, "Jakim".

Stig: Now I'm curious to see the response from the Muslim NGOs (Isma, Perkasa, PPIM, etc) since they were the most vocal when this started. They were calling for jihad , suing for RM1 billion, questioning blood transfusions and boycotting Kraft . It looks like this over-reaction to unverified facts has left them with egg all over their faces.

Anonymous #19098644: One more classic case of incompetence. One more case of intolerance. One more case of misguided righteous anger and angst. One more reason why Muslims and the rakyat need to change this incompetent, misguided Umno administration.

Ksn: The authorities can say what they like about Cadbury chocolates not contaminated by pig DNA. But Ridhuan Tee will not agree. He wants the Cadbury licence cancelled. Who dares to go against his decision?

6th Generation Immigrant: Who is now responsible for the damage already done in Malaysia, Indonesia and in Saudi Arabia today to Cadbury - and all because someone trumpeted an unsubstantiated report to gain mileage?

Gunnerrun: I heard Hershey's investing RM816 million in Iskandar Malaysia to build the biggest chocolate factory in Asia. All the best to you guys... you may need to do some rethinking. Or re-strategising?

Headhunter: Cadbury should sue whoever was responsible for the mess. This must have cause a lot of damage to its reputation and sales. These sort of false claims have become a habit for some people.

It's just like all the false accusations they make about Christians converting Muslims to Christianity, without proof and without any shred of evidence.

Remember last year, close to Hari Raya, the same thing happened to Churn Butter, which they claimed was not halal.

Foreign companies must be weary of selling their products or setting up their manufacturing facilities in Malaysia. In this country, all it takes is for an idiot to cause the authorities to run like a mad bull in a china shop.

AdMsian: Did they not clean the equipment properly before the test? This is rubbish.

Myop101: So, will any head roll from this debacle? Please note that it is not just Cadbury’s credibility on the line here, it is Jakim's. So, someone has to take the fall for the sake of preserving the sanctity of the halal certification process.

TheSaint: Immediately after winning the Teluk Intan by-election, this decision was reversed. By this we can easily conclude that it was a diversion and it worked well for some parties. Now everything is back to normal, until another by-election crops up again, and new findings will erupt.

Anonymous #59879079: Shouldn’t the extremists burn Jakim to the ground instead, in light of this new information? These extremists must be consistent in their threats and behaviour and not be selective.

MinahBulat: If Cadbury were to close down or burn down, there will be massive repercussions. Go to the factory in Shah Alam and you can see the majority of the employees are Malays. My point is this: with the massive damage done to Cadbury, who is now going to compensate the company?

Just ask any Malay on the street. Most will now tell you that Cadbury ‘ada babi’ (contains pork) and will not touch that brand. Where are these Muslim NGOs now? Really sad and I squarely put the blame on Jakim, which has failed badly in handling this issue.

CHKS: Very good. This is what happens when you are so impulsive! I think most likely the "porcine" DNA is a cross-contamination from other DNAs.

Or it could be a technical error - the machine detected porcine DNA whereas in actual case, it could other types of DNA due to minute differences in the amino acids.

Many types of DNA are only slightly different from one animal to another. Even human DNA is closely similar to porcine DNA.

We need to get a genetic expert to explain this. There isn't any deliberate usage of any lard or animal parts. You think Cadbury is so stupid as to purposely put the lard inside?

JoanH: Cadbury must take action against the authorities for this "careless" accusation against the company. And pray tell, how did this contamination occur?

How can we know for sure that "pig DNA" samples aren't readily available in the testing labs to allow sabotage of certain products? Companies can be made easy targets by such unscrupulous people.

Factnot fiction: Common sense tells us that it is impossible for chocolate to be contaminated with pig DNA, for no ingredient in it comes into close proximity with pigs. Most probably, the analysis was carried out by a pig whose DNA contaminated the sample.

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