Vietnamese blast food agencies over low-protein milk

Feb 12, 2009, 7:12 GMT

   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.