Hanoi - Vietnamese media and consumers Thursday criticized
government authorities over a food safety scandal in which milk
products with falsified protein content were sold for months after
inspectors discovered the fraud.
Health authorities in Ho Chi Minh City revealed Friday that dozens
of Vietnamese-made and foreign dairy products they had tested
beginning in October, including infant formula, contained almost no
protein, despite advertising high protein levels on their packaging.
Nutrition officials said up to half of the products tested
contained less than 2 per cent protein, far below the 11-14 per cent
required for basic nutrition for small children. But authorities did
not begin removing the products from stores until last week.
Consumers have reacted angrily.
'I think the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Trade and
Industry have to take responsibility,' said Nguyen Thi Thu Nga, 25, a
business executive in Hanoi who buys milk for her 5-year-old son. 'If
these agencies did their jobs, low-quality milk producers would not
be able to sell their products in Vietnam.'
'They are irresponsible towards our future generation,' said Hanoi
high school teacher Nguyen Thu Thuy, who has two small children. 'I
don't understand why the prime minister lets cases like this occur
repeatedly.'
The newspaper Lao Dong (Labour) ran letters from readers calling
the failure to block sales of the low-protein milk 'a sin,' saying it
had 'lent a hand to cheaters.'
Some government officials disagreed with the media's efforts to
pin the blame on them.
Nguyen Hung Long, deputy director of the Food Hygiene and Safety
Agency, said his department had issued warnings about the low-protein
dairy products after discovering them in October.
Long said taking the milk off the market 'is not our
responsibility, because it relates to fake and low-quality products,
which are the responsibility of the Competitive Business Department.'
The products identified in the scandal involve powdered milk which
officials said had probably been cut with high-fat, low-protein
material. The scandal has not implicated Vietnamese fresh milk
producers, which routinely test their farmers' milk to ensure
adequate protein content.
Rafael Somers, chief technical adviser at the Vietnam Belgium
Dairy Project, which advises high-quality fresh milk producers, said
the uproar is a sign that Vietnam is beginning to take food safety
seriously.
'It's a good development that at least these products are tested,
and some organization checks if the labeling is correct,' Somers
said.
The Vietnamese dairy market went through an earlier round of
trouble last fall, after China announced that much of the milk
produced there contained the industrial chemical melamine. Several
products on the Vietnamese market were found to contain melamine,
leading to boycotts of some companies.
Later tests showed the original results showing melamine
contamination in some products may have been wrong, leading to
needless consumer concern and commercial damage.
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