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Overseas markets still taking Kiwi infant formula after poison threat: minister

Xinhua, March 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

None of the 80 overseas markets buying New Zealand infant formula has indicated they will stop imports because of a poisoning threat, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said Tuesday.

The government had been in contact with officials in overseas markets since the blackmail letters threatening to put the poison 1080 in infant and other formula made in New Zealand, Guy said in a televised press conference.

It would be very difficult for someone to tamper with a can of formula without the consumer seeing it.

He was speaking after the revelation by police and food safety officials that they had failed to discover who had issued the threat in anonymous letters sent to farming and dairy industry leaders in November last year in an apparent protest over the use of 1080 poison to control pests.

He described the letters as "eco-terrorism" and said they amounted to "criminal blackmail."

The government had to give police time to investigate the threat before going public, but it had reached out to overseas markets and industry-related organizations that were briefed.

Prime Minister John Key said at the same press conference that the government was confident New Zealand products were safe.

While the risk was very low and the letters were likely a hoax, it had to be taken seriously, said Key.

Police said the letters sent to the Federated Farmers industry group and the Fonterra dairy cooperative were accompanied by small packages of milk powder that subsequently tested positive for the presence of a concentrated form of the poison 1080.

The letters threatened to contaminate infant and other formula with 1080 unless New Zealand stopped using 1080 for pest control by the end of March 2015.

Sodium monofluoroacetate, known as 1080, is a poison used to protect New Zealand's native flora and fauna against introduced pests such as possums and ferrets.

Its use has been controversial over the years with opponents saying it poisons native animals and contaminates the environment. Endi