DOH refuses to issue ban list of China food
By Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Ronnel Domingo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:33:00 09/25/2008
Filed Under: Consumer Issues, Food, Health, Chemicals, Children
MANILA, Philippines—Neither the Department of Health nor the Bureau of Food and Drugs, agencies which have called on the public to avoid consuming China-made milk and milk products, issued any list of the banned products.
But the DOH has started monitoring children with kidney problems in government hospitals to trace if they were exposed to contaminated milk from China.
No case has been confirmed to be linked to the contaminated milk products so far, said Dr. Enrique Tayag, director of the National Epidemiology Center.
“The tracing back is aimed to establish the degree of illness in children and to find out if the illness was related to the intake of milk formula,” Tayag said Wednesday in a phone interview.
Tayag said the health department would trace children below two years old, who have been diagnosed with kidney problems in government hospitals and interview their pediatricians and parents if they were breastfed or if they were given infant formula.
The health department has adopted the advisory of the BFAD in banning the importation and sale of milk and milk products from China pending the results of laboratory tests to determine if products sold in the country have been tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.
Import licenses revoked
The health department also temporarily revoked all licenses of importers of milk products from China.
Four children have died while 50,000 others have fallen ill in China after drinking milk laced with melamine, which is used for pesticides and plastics.
Suppliers allegedly added the chemical to watered-down milk because its high nitrogen content masks lack of protein content.
The country does not import infant formula from China, according to BFAD. What its monitors found on Tuesday were bottled liquid milk from China in stores in Manila, Parañaque and Quezon and in towns in Cavite and Laguna.
“The (health department) hereby bans the importation, distribution, sale or offer for sale of all infant formula and other milk products emanating from China. No firm, company, or whatever entity shall buy, purchase, or otherwise acquire said products for whatever reason,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in the memorandum order released Wednesday.
“All existing import licenses are hereby deemed revoked and/or otherwise cancelled,” the memorandum added, taking its cue from a BFAD advisory issued Tuesday.
No list
Responding to questions from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, officials of the two agencies pointed at one another on who should issue the list.
In a simple inquiry with the BFAD hotline, the operator just said: “Do not buy any milk and milk products that are made from China.”
Any food with milk ingredient
Queried on which specific brands should be avoided in the meantime, the hotline operator just said: “Any milk and milk products from China.”
Asked if milk-based food products like biscuits and chocolates are included in the ban, the operator said: “Any food products with milk as main ingredients.”
She confirmed that she had already received numerous calls from consumers.
BFAD field inspectors, tasked with bringing samples of China-made milk and milk products for testing, are not provided with a list of specific brands to watch out for.
“We are instructed to monitor all milk and milk products from China in the markets. We are also looking out for unregistered milk products,” BFAD Calabarzon supervisor Josephine Padilla told the Inquirer. Calabarzon refers to Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon provinces.
Virginia Francia Laboy, officer in charge of BFAD policy, planning and advocacy, said the bureau would not be releasing any list.
“We do not want to release any list yet. We do not want to penalize only those registered products because we are also concerned with unregistered products,” Laboy said.
Text messages
Told that there have been text messages circulating naming several brands as among those being banned, BFAD Director Leticia Gutierrez said the list did not come from the bureau.
But she said her office also received those text messages and its inspectors were already checking on the products.
Her advice to consumers who receive these text messages: “It is better to be on the safe side. They can just avoid these products in the meantime, especially since these are not staple food.”
The brands in the text messages circulating include famous chocolates.
“Whatever brand, as long as it (milk and milk products) comes from China, then it is included in the ban,” Gutierrez said.
Health Undersecretary Alex Padilla said the list should come from the BFAD, since the department order in the memorandum was directed at appropriate agencies.
Pulled out
Milk products from China have been pulled out of supermarket shelves as early as last week even as the government has yet to determine which particular items were dangerous to consumers.
The Philippine Association of Supermarkets Inc. (PASI) and Philippine Amalgamated Supermarkets Assessments (Pagasa) ordered their members to stop selling the products when reports came out about melamine contamination.
PASI members include Makati Supermarket, UniMart, Rustans and Robinsons while members of Pagasa include neighborhood-type operations.
“The BFAD directive that we received on Tuesday now only serves as a reminder for those who have not complied with our own order,” said Federico I. Ples, PASI secretary general.
Ples said the group would hold a national meeting on Friday to reiterate the BFAD order to 64 members across the nation.
He said the sale of milk products from China formed an insignificant amount of PASI members’ turnover.
Yili, Mengniu sold briskly
Pagasa president Steven T. Cua said Chinese brands like Yili and Mengniu were selling briskly two months or so ago.
“I heard they sell well, but I’m not sure which of our more than 160 members do carry them,” Cua said. “Anyway, I am told the supplies of these brands are intermittent.”
Milk products made by Sanlu have been reported to be the cause of kidney problems among children in Gansu province and the cities of Beijing and Shanghai.
“All our field offices are working with the health department to ensure that contaminated milk products from China will not be sold to consumers,” Trade Secretary Peter B. Favila said.
In Muntinlupa City, officials urged residents to look out for any milk products from China that might have made their way to public markets, supermarkets and even sari-sari stores in the city.
Mayor Aldrin San Pedro said the public may call the following telephone numbers if they see milk products from China being sold in the city: 862-5660/861-2459/862-3965. With a report from DJ Yap
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