Malaysia Herbal or Traditional Medicines Contain Prohibited Chemicals / Senarai Ubatan Herba atau Tradisional Malaysia Mengandungi Kimia Dilarang

In recent years the Malaysia National Pharmaceutical Agency has tested and identified numbers of registered herbal or traditional medicinal products that found to contain prohibited (hazardous) chemicals. For the list, please click the link below.

Beberapa tahun kebelakangan ini, Agensi Regulatori Farmaseutikal Kebangsaan Malaysia telah mengenalpasti produk-produk ubatan herba atau tradisional tempatan yang didapati mengandungi bahan kimia terlarang (berbahaya). Sila klik pautan di bawah untuk senarai tersebut.

De-registered Malaysia Herbal or Traditional Medicinal Product

Safe Use of Disinfectant/ Guna Pembasmi Kuman dengan Selamat

USE PLENTY OF WATER TO WASH AWAY THE DISINFECTANT

In clinical setting or laboratory works with microbiological materials, we often practice washing hand with disinfectant to ensure hygiene for personal safety and protecting the safety of the work process and material being handled. Thus, one might assume its safe to frequently wash hand with the disinfectant. Unfortunately, we forget to highlight that disinfectant is actually a biocide intended to kill a living cell, in this case it is the bacteria or microbe in general. Hence, the question raised how does it kill the bacteria and what happens if similar mechanism happens to human skin. There are various disinfectant products in the market which vary in the active ingredients used for the antimicrobial properties. One of the actives is chlorhexidine, commonly known product is Hibiscrub. It has an effective antibacterial property being used for many years in Malaysia but care needed in direct exposure to human skin. Recently the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency has issued a directive to inform users on the risk of hypersensitivity in using the pharmaceutical products that contain chlorhexicidine. Perhaps similar precaution should be taken when using any chemical disinfectant. Click link for details NPRA Directive on Chlorhexidine Products. 

Lumrah kita mengunakan pembasmi kuman semasa mencuci tangan semasa menjalankan kerja-kerja klinikal atau makmal yang melibatkan pengendalian bahan mikrobiologikal, bertujuan memastikan kebersihan untuk keselamatan diri, kerja dan bahan yang dikendalikan. Langsung kita andaikan pencucian dengan menggunakan pembasmi kuman (disinfektan) adalah selamat. Malangnya kita lupa hebahkan bahawa disinfektan sebenarnya satu racun untuk membunuh sel hidup, khususnya bakteria atau mikrob secara umum. Justeu, persoalannya bagaimana disinfektan membunuh bakteria dan apa akan berlaku jika mekanisma yang sama berlaku pada kulit manusia. Terdapat pelbagai produk disinfektan di pasaran yang mengandungi bahan aktif yang berbeza untuk tindakan antibakteria. Satu daripda bahan aktif tersebut ialah chlorhexidine, lebih kenali menerusi produk bernama Hibiscrub. Bahan aktif ini bertindak sebagai pembasmi kuman dengan efektif yang telah digunakan bertahun-tahun di Malaysia. Penggunannya perlu berhati-hati khususnya ketika sentuhan secara langsung pada kulit. Baru-baru ini Agensi Regulatori Farmaseutical Kebangsaan telah mengarahkan pengguna produk farmaseutikal yang mengandungi chlorhexidine dimaklumkan risiko hipersensitiviti. Seeloknya langkah peringatan yang sama perlu diambil maklum ketika menggunakan sebarang bahan kimia pembasmi kuman. Klik pautan ini untuk Perincian Arahan NPRA Berkaitan Produk Chlorhexidine.

My Masjid Parfum

Salam

Dear friends and colleagues,

Salam.

Hereby attached is a manual (in Malay) on how to prepare a home-made botanical fragrant concentrate without using hazardous chemical substance. Although the scent may not be as strong as the synthetic perfume sold in the market but you know it is made from non-hazardous chemicals.

Wish you success.

Bersama ini dilampirkan cara kerja (dalam bahasa Melayu) untuk menghasilkan pekatan wangi botanikal di rumah tanpa menggunakan bahan kimia berbahaya. Walaupun, baunya tidak sekuat pewangi sintetik yang dijual di pasaran tetapi anda tahu ianya diperbuat daripada bahan kimia yang tidak berbahaya.

Doakan anda berjaya.

 

We Share the Same Air But Not the Same Air Quality?

Air we breath in our atmosphere within our planet earth is not static. There is a complicated wind system influenced by various factors, like pressure that moves the air circulating within the globe. Hence, the dusts from a localized volcano eruption leads to massive disruption to international fights. Similarly, when an air pollution occurs in one country, eventually it will be distributed to neighboring countries.

 

Image of Dust Cloud Dispersion from the 2010 Iceland Volcano Eruption, Source: http://www.rainharvest.co.za

In some places it is an annual routines to generate dust particles from smokes by burning agricultural fields in early February to allow the fields to clear before plants and grasses begin to green in spring, e.g. Kansas, USA

Photo of Controlled Burning of Grass, Source: http://cjonline.com

   
 

 

In recent months, the well known German car manufacturer, i.e. Volkswagen has admitted that its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests in USA. Now has to spend USD 7 billion to buy back its 500,000 diesel cars sold to American who filed the law suit because they were cheated on the car emission conformance to US standard, which obviously passed the German standard.

 

Unfortunately in some countries, aged school bus is licenced and obviously discharge black smoke willingly and the community accepts the scene without a serious fight, not like Americans.

 

Perhaps, people think that every country is breathing air from different source with different standard of air quality, similar to public tap water.

Images related to Volkswagen Emission Scandal, Source: http://www.nytimes.com

 

1st Party Audit Being Practiced Like 3rd Party Audit

 

In recent years of my 3rd party audit and assessment works, I'm seeing trend of internal audit aka 1st party audit is being conducted exactly like the 3rd party audit. Consequently, the internal audit fails to initiate timely correction of non-compliance on real-time basis and unable to prevent potential occurrence of non-compliance.

In fact, the organization accepts the idea that it is alright for management system's PDCA cycle is "broken" in-between its annual internal audit. Internal audit is one of the management system's quality assurance tool which is meant to ensure the organization continuously maintains its 365-day operation complying to its own policy, objectives and customers/ stakeholders expectation (stated/ implied/ obligatory). Conducting internal audit once a-year in several days does not reflect comprehension of continuous improvements of the operation that emphasizes prevention of failure thru timely corrections, corrective actions and preventive actions.  

The 3rd party audit by the certification/ accreditation body is meant to attest the organization has implemented/ maintains its implementation of the management system in accordance to requirements of the selected standards. It does not have adequate strength to replace the internal audit program performed by staff who knows in-depth the daily operational processes that transform the allocated inputs to the expected outputs, using available resources under real-time constraints within the inherent organizational behaviour.

Thus, the implementation of the internal audit program illustrates the sincerity by management to continuously improve their management system or just for the sake to fulfill the certification/accreditation body expectation, i.e. "Melepaskan batok di tangga". 

 

Note: About the photo, it shows the an old traditional practice of Malay culture to place an earthen jar in front of house next to staircase. A dipper made of coconut shell is known as "batok" in malay language. It is used to take water to wash feet before going into the house. Those days, people walk bare footed. There is an old Malay proverb "Melepaskan batok di tangga", translated in English "Leaving dipper on the staircase". It is a bad manner of a person when he does not place the place back the dipper on the cover of the jar, after washing his feet. The proverb is said when someone does something just for the sake of doing it without comprehension.

Internally or Externally Internal Audit?

Management systems (e.g. ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO/IEC 17025, ISO/IEC 15189, OSHAS 18001, ISO 22000, ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 30301) were built on processed based approach that assimilates the commonly known PDCA/PDSA cycle, made popular by Dr W. Edwards Deming. The cycle describes that good practice of managing of any activity starts with the planning (P for Plan) on how to carry out the activity in order to achieve customer satisfaction. Usually target (objective) of the activity are set to reflect key perception of the customer that should satisfy the customer expectation. Subsequently, the plan is executed (D for Do), then it is evaluated (C for Check or S for Study) whether the execution was effective in achieving the planned objective. Subsequently, action (A for Act) is taken to improve the activity based on the evaluation findings to meet the original objective. Occasionally, the A will trigger a revised P for the next cycle of the activity. Hence the PDCA cycles continuous as long as there is an activity to satisfy the person who requested the activity, i.e. the customer.

One of the instrument of checking (C) or study (S) is by conducting Internal Audit, also known as "first party audit". The word "internal" reflects that it is initiated within the organization, especially by the owner of the activity. Knowing that self-checking by the person who conducted the activity is inadequate to build confidence, often another person who is very familiar with organization's implemented systems and the P (e.g. the procedure, time, objective) of the activity is engaged as the second pair of eyes (aka Internal Auditor) to evaluate the executed activity. In the event, the activity did not adhere to the organization's system or the predetermined P, the internal auditor would suggest doable actions (A) to correct and improve the activity while taking into consideration of the organization resources, priorities and limitations, which were the factors that influenced the initial P and D of the activity.  

 

For various reasons, there is an option to engage person outside the organization to perform the role of Internal Auditor on part-time basis, whereby the person only present at the organization during the audit sessions, often unaware the organization operational resource and progress. I call this Externally Internal Audit. In general, it is allowable but it may have serious disadvantages to the overall management system of the organization. Hereby listed some of the issues that I've seen while performing 3rd party auditing:

• The organization's human resource loses opportunity of job enrichment via internal auditing because they don't experience the whole activities within the management system in realizing the product.

• The organization's human resource lacks appreciation on the importance of their activity to entire management system because they can't see the impact to other activities throughout the organization.

• The organization's human resource lacks understanding on the mechanics of organizational continuous improvement in relation to preventive actions because they implement PDCA in isolation of their own activity.

• The organization's human resource i.e. the auditee sees the internal auditor as the "problem maker - fault finder" not as "problem solver" because the person is not considered as part of the "family" thus creating stressful and non-constructive internal auditing sessions.

• The internal auditor often performs audit (C or S) similar to the "3rd party audit" whereby only non-compliance is highlighted without advising actions (A) to be taken to resolve it.

• The internal auditor often recommends actions (A) without considering the organization's resources, priorities and limitations, consequently organization incurs expenses to remedy a non-compliance.

• The internal auditor tends to dictate/force the auditee to execute the activity (D) in accordance to his/her organization practice, even though the existing D meets the P, causing non-essential purchase of resources.

While maintaining the principles of auditing (integrity, fair, professional care, confidentiality, independence & evidence-based) as described in ISO 19011, whoever been appointed as the internal auditor (internally or externally), shall make themselves perceived as part of the family of the organization, "one for all, all for one" in the sole mission of improving the management system of the organization.

Practical Precision - Pricy Perfection

Few hours drive from Bangkok, Thailand, there is a unique wet market known as "train market". The market is assembled very-very close & on the the town's railway track near the Ratyatraksa road. 

Whenever, the train arrives, the stall owners, swiftly pull their stall's shades and re-position once the train passes-by. 

Interestingly their naked eye measurement in setting-up the stalls, product displays and shades are practical to handle and precise enough for the train pass-thru without hitting any of the stalls or their products. It looks impossible but it has been their life routines, they have a very good way in maintaining the "measurement uncertainty", everything is done manually without any automation, sensors or measuring tape, but it works.

 

Measurement is common in our daily life even at kitchen while perfecting recipes. For laboratory, quality of a measurement depends on the capability to perform the measurement at high level of accuracy. Whereby accuracy is dependent on the precision and trueness. 

When an instrument, e.g. weighing scale displays same value of readings in a series of repeated weighing of the same item, it is considered to be very precise. While trueness is reflected by the capability of the weighing scale to display correct value of weight, which is predetermined by means of calibration using standardized weights, also known as "standard stone". Normally, an equipment calibration service will cover both precision and trueness, often represented by the value named "uncertainty of measurement" stated on the calibration certificate.

Definitely, an accurate measurement is a must but the level of accuracy must fits the purpose of measurement. There is tendency for some customers, auditors and laboratory managers to over-emphasize the accuracy level by increasing the readability (e.g. the number of decimals). Without realizing it defeats the cost-effectiveness, which is the ground rule of organizational survival. 

Increasing readability does not necessarily increase accuracy. Let's compare a digital contact thermometer (CT) of 0.5°C readability that costs MYR50 to a digital infra-red thermometer (IRT) of 0.01°C readability that costs MYR500. Both will incur the same fee for calibration services, around MYR120. After calibration for use between 40 to 150°C, both are used to verify temperature of a stainless steel water bath being setup at 50°C, the CT displays 50.5°C and IRT displays 51.02 °C, which one is the best measurement? Knowing the control knob on the water bath shows increment of setting at 1 °C, does the water bath operation require accuracy of ± 0.01 °C or ± 1 °C is adequate for it's temperature setting?  Perhaps it is more convenient with style to use the IRT, but do double check the user manual, don't be surprised to read that some IRT not intended for measuring temperature of metallic surface.