Nearly 90 percent of the Vietnamese rice noodle samples taken for toxic tests in the southernmost province of Ca Mau were found to be tainted with a toxic industrial chemical, the provincial health department announced Friday.

The contaminated noodle products are those very common to local consumers, namely bun, banh uot, and pho.

Sixteen samples of the said noodle were taken from local stores and manufacturers for tests, which eventually found as many as 14 of them contain the whitener tinopal.

A bun sample of these had a tinopal content that exceeds the allowable rate by many times, an official from the province’s food safety agency said.

Tinopal is a fluorescent optical brightener, and when it is added to rice vermicelli, it makes it look whiter, brighter and fresher than normal, and thereby more attractive to customers.

The substance can lead to several diseases, including cancer.

A nationwide campaign aimed at testing rice noodle was initiated in late July, when the Center for Study and Consultation on Consumerism (CESCON) released the result of its survey, which found more than 80 percent of the Vietnamese rice vermicelli samples to contain the banned tinopal.

Prior to Ca Mau, Dong Thap Province announced in mid-August that 19 out of 20 samples of rice noodle it tested were contaminated with the chemical.