In early 2007, a recall was made on pet food (Purina Alpo & Del Monte) made in China when it was found to have high levels of melamine. Pet owners in various message boards and fora where up in arms when they traced their pets’ death and sickness to this chemical.
Later that year, major toy companies also recalled products made in China when they found out that the toys made there contained lead, a potentially deadly component for children to play around with.
And now the milk scandal. With four babies dead and the number of sick babies growing, I cannot just imagine how these unscrupulous businessmen risk their reputation for this. For more profit? You think after this scandal and the millions of recalled product, they’d still be able to earn a cent? For a quick million bucks, maybe? It boggles my mind how they would even think on mixing this substance with food; food we feed our pets, our children and ourselves.
I have been following the local news and international news websites about this subject. On TV Patrol World last night, they reported that a private testing laboratory Qualibet Lab, conducted an independent testing of several food products and their results showed that even canned food from China is tainted with Melamine! Watch the video clip below:
At about 7PM, I switched to Tony Velasquez’ Prime News on ANC. He was able to interview BFAD Director Leticia Gutierrez. When asked about the findings of Qualibet, Gutierrez expressed…hesitation? I can’t be sure but she wasn’t being straightforward. Pressed for comments if BFAD would now issue a ban on the products tested positive for Melamine, or if BFAD will now do an urgent/immediate testing to confirm/thwart Qualibet’s findings, Gutierrez could not, or rather would not give a straight yes/no answer. Tony didn’t give up and asked if her answer meant that in the absence of confirmation by BFAD, consumers can still go and buy these melamine-tainted products, she can only say: “BFAD is prioritizing milk and milk products testing for now…”
I understood that to mean: “In the meantime, the public can go buy and poison themselves…”
Today on ANC’s Dateline Philippines with Ricky Carandang & Lynda Jumilla, DOH Secretary Duque was interviewed right after the press conference where he announced that two china-made milk products are positive for Melamine. When asked the same question Tony asked Gutierrez, Duque somehow resented the fact that a private testing laboratory beat them to the media with their findings. He added that how can they be so sure of their reference standard when DOH/BFAD’s equipment just arrived?
Ah, Mr. Duque, we are sorry to disappoint you but private companies actually are more efficient with their resources? I mean, they don’t get millions in budget (or maybe they do) but their money goes where it should go. And you hated that? That was just so irritating. Here is one entity trying to help the public by informing them on which products to avoid and DOH/BFAD are being myopic on power play!
I understand Mr. Duque’s concern that BFAD has to be the sole, reliable authority with regards to this issue . But then everyone knows, except maybe for DOH/BFAD, that they are short on resources. And may I add, that if they were only doing their job i.e. checking, assessing and testing every product coming into the country, we wouldn’t even have this problem now!
I’m beginning to think that this year’s gonna be the scariest Halloween ever!
