MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE 2) The Department of Health (DoH) is set to include milk products imported from countries other than in their list of products 'for testing' to ensure these do not contain the toxic chemical melamine, which has been blamed for kidney problems of thousands infants in China, officials said.
Aside from this, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said exporters will soon be required to disclose fully the ingredients of their products.
Duque and Bureau of Food and Drugs director Leticia Gutierrez, who attended a budget hearing at the House of Representatives, specifically mentioned Mr. Brown coffee from Taiwan, Heinz food products from America, and Lotte food products from Japan, saying these could contain ingredients from China.
They added that other products from the US, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia might also be tested.
Duque said the disclosure of where products’ ingredients are sourced will allow the DoH to “use those documents against possible liabilities; hahaba ang [for testing] list araw-araw [the list of products for testing will grow longer everyday]," said Duque.
Any imported dairy product whose origin has not been fully disclosed will be banned, Duque warned.
The regulations will require exporters from countries such as Australia and New Zealand to disclose where their milk came from if it was not procured locally, he added.
If an exporter fails to make a full disclosure, officials will assume the milk product came from China and ban it, Duque said.
"Of course it's always good to have evidence rather than just speculate, but we will have to shift the burden of proof to them because our duty is to protect public health," Duque told The Associated Press.
The Philippines is among at least 12 countries that have banned Chinese dairy products or foods that contain Chinese milk as a precaution against sickness among local infants.
BFAD is conducting tests on some 50 milk products from China, the and results are expected later this week, Duque said.
The list BFAD earlier issued included many popular milk product brands.
Four brands -- Anchor Lite Milk, Anlene Milk Low Fat, Anmum Materna and Anmum Materna Chocolate -- have been removed from the original list of products to be tested by the DoH because these were actually manufactured in New Zealand.
A BFAD advisory on Monday the updated list of products being tested after the removal of the four brands. These are:
Anchor Wam Frootmilk Drink Mango Magic
Anchor Wam Frootmilk Orange Chill
Anchor Wam Frootmilk Strawberry Spin
Dutch Lady Pure Milk
Farmland Skim Milk
Greenfood Yili Pure Milk
Jinwei Drink
Jollycow Pure fresh Milk
Jollycow Slender Lowfat Milk
KLIM Instant Full Cream Milk Powder (1.8 Kg)
M&M Chocolate brown 40gm.
Meiji Hokkaido Azuki (red bean ice cream)
Meiji Ujikintoki (red bean and green tea frozen confection)
Mengniu Original Drink Milk
Mengniu Pure Milk
Milk Chocolate Bars/China
Milk Chocolate Candies/China
Milkboy repacked
Monmilk Breakfast Milk Walnut Milk Beverage
Monmilk High Calcium Low Fat Milk
Monmilk High Calcium Milk
Monmilk Milk Deluxe Pure Milk
Monmilk Pure Milk
Monmilk Suan Suan Ru Sour Milk Beverage (Mango Flavor)
Natural Choice Milk Ice bar
Nespray
Nestle Carnation Calcium Plus Non Fat Milk Powder (1.6 Kg)
Nestle Chocolate flavor Ice Cream Cone
Nestle Dairy Farm Pure Milk
Nestle Vanilla Flavor Ice Cream Cone
Nutri Express Milk
Nutri-Express 15 Nutritional elements (blue, red and orange label and cap)
Nutri-Express Milk
Nutri-Express Milk Green Apple
Prime Roast cereals 28gm
Pura Fresh Milk
Snickers brown 59gm
Strawberry Sorbet
Trappist Dairy Low Fat yogurt drink
Vita Fresh Milk
Wahaha Orange
Wahaha Yellow
Want Want Milk Drink
Yili High Calcium 250 ml
Yili High Calcium Milk 1L
Yili High Calicium Low fat Milk Beverage
Yili Lowfat Milk 1L
Yili Milk; Yili Puremilk 250 ml
Yili Puremilk 1L
Yinlu Milk Peanut.
China has promised to improve food safety amid a widening scandal over melamine-tainted milk that has been blamed for four deaths and kidney stones and other illnesses in 54,000 children.
