Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam asks all concerned agencies to tighten control over food safety, strictly punish violators, and perfect relevant laws and regulations. The Deputy PM made the call at an online conference held on Thursday with local authorities to discuss measures to improve food safety and thereby protect consumers’ health. In the past time, many plans of action have been issued with an aim to strengthen food safety, but their efficiency has yet to be as high as expected, because of a lack of a strong determination and close coordination, the Deputy PM said. Besides concerned agencies, authorities of all localities must strengthen control over food production, strictly punish violators and provide the public with necessary knowledge of food safety, Dam said.   Names of violators should be publicized on the media, he said. In addition, personnel training and reinforcement must be boosted in food inspection forces of all levels, the official added. Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said that contaminated food caused diseases to people and thereby affected the quality of race. In order to fight ‘dirty’ food efficiently, close coordination needed to be made among various ministries, not only among three Ministries of Public Security, Agriculture and Rural Development, and Heath. The health ministry will submit to the Government a new Decree on penalties of violations of regulations on food safety, with fine rates to be seven times higher than currently, Minister Tien said. The ministry will also submit to the Government a project to build a food safety and hygiene verification center and an early warning center, the minister said.  Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said, “It is a crime to add poisonous substances to food. We cannot accept anyone who gets benefit by posing risks of health to others.”     

45% of samples are mildewed According to statistics released at the conference, the results of tests on 24,000 samples of food in 2013 showed that 45.3 percent of them were mildewed, 26.5 percent contained Coliforms, 18.4 percent contained E. Coli, and 18 percent was contaminated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Coliforms and E. Coli are bacteria that cause diarrhea while Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common bacterium that can cause disease in animals, including humans. Regarding chemical contamination, 78 percent of the samples were positive for Aldehyde that can cause mental breakdown, 23 percent were processed with used, stale cooking oil, and 12 percent was tainted with Cyclamete, 8.4 percent contained borax, 7.9 percent was contaminated with Methanol, and 4 percent contained formaldehyde, which is used to preserve dead bodies.