DTI helps monitor DEHP-contaminated products in market

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Trade and Industry will aid the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health in ensuring that Taiwanese products contaminated with Di(2-ethylhexyl) thalate (DEHP) do not enter the local market.

Trade and Industry Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya said a special market monitoring team was formed to ensure the removal of such products from grocery stores, supermarkets, and convenience store shelves. Most stores had already removed Taiwan-made products containing DEHP from their shelves last May 31, on the advice of the DOH.

Apart from stores, the joint DTI-DOH monitoring team also checked warehouses suspected of housing DEHP-contaminated products.

Bureau of Trade Regulation and Consumer Protection director Victorio Mario Dimagiba said that in an inspection of one warehouse, the monitoring team found six sealed boxes of Taiwan-made fruit juice drinks that were about to be picked up by the supplier.

Samples of these juice drinks were taken for testing.

Dimagiba stressed the importance of getting the cooperation of the private sector to ensure that no DEHP-contaminated products penetrate the domestic market.

“The DTI and DOH has this understanding that each office is an extension of (the other) during a crisis like this when the health and safety of consumers, as well as the plight of businesses, are at stake,” Maglaya said in a statement.

“The Department is in full support of the DOH’s drive to remove these unsafe products from the market, and we have agreed that we will assist them in the monitoring activities,” she added.