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Experts Say Food Safety Standards Should Be Increased Accountability Mechanism

2011/9/23 11:07:00 37

Food safety standards are being described as "scattered and poor".

The formulation and implementation of strict food safety standards is the prerequisite for truly achieving source control and prevention.

The formulation of food safety standards should be based on the results of food safety assessment, and food safety risk assessment is a long-term and dynamic mechanism.

The key to solve the problem of food safety supervision is to strengthen supervision over food safety regulators.

According to the latest public information from the Ministry of health, the Ministry of health is in accordance with the unified plan of the food safety office of the State Council.

Ministry of science and technology

The 6 departments of SAIC, qqa and other departments jointly studied and formulated the demonstration scheme for inspection methods of waste oil, and set up an expert group of demonstration methods for testing methods, including authoritative experts and relevant institutions in the fields of oil processing, food safety, hygiene inspection and chemical analysis.

Although the demonstration of the inspection method of the waste oil will complement the current detection of short boards, it will be of great benefit to the future work of food hygiene and safety. However, there is a public belief that in every food safety storm that has occurred in recent years, every time after "accident", there is no lack of testing standards, imperfections or no detection. The reason behind it is worth thinking deeply.

High detection cost and high impact

In recent days, the Ministry of public security deployed a unified command of the police in Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan and other places to successfully detect a huge illegal use of cooking oil in the cooking oil, and arrested 32 main suspects.

Edible oil

And sell the underground industry chain.

After the case was cracked, the detection of trench oil became the focus of social concern.

It is understood that the "Hygienic standard for edible vegetable oils" issued jointly by the Ministry of health and the National Standards Commission was implemented in October 1, 2005.

According to the national standard of edible oil, there are 9 physical and chemical indicators that should be tested.

The maximum daily consumption of peanut oil and soybean oil is 6 to 7 contents, namely acid value, peroxide value, residual solvent oil, total arsenic, lead, aflatoxin, benzo (a) pyrene and so on.

According to the current testing standards, the waste oil is even "qualified".

According to Fan Zhihong, associate professor of nutrition and food safety department of China Agricultural University, the main characteristic of waste oil is poor quality and even poisonous.

Repeated use of the trench oil, will also occur heat decomposition, direct production of carcinogens, such as benzopyrene.

The International Cancer Institute affiliated to WHO is divided into four categories according to the degree of carcinogenicity of human body. Benzopyrene belongs to the first category, that is, a substance with obvious carcinogenic effect.

According to Ling Qiulai, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Bureau, "up to now, there is still no drainage oil in our country.

Testing standard

It is difficult to assess accurately the harm and harm of cooking oil produced from waste oil.

Under the coordination of the Public Security Bureau of the Ministry of public security, we hired experts from Beijing to conduct relevant tests to determine the existence of toxic and harmful substances in the edible oils produced by green company.

"From the testing point of view, the detection cost of oil is very high.

If the cost is too high, it is easy to have problems when cracking down on illegal activities. "

Professor Wang Jingbo, a researcher at China University of Political Science and Law's rule of law government, said.

How many testing standards still face blank?

"Legal Daily" reporter learned that in recent years, food safety incidents, almost all of them lack a clear and reasonable detection standard.

Taking milk powder hormones as an example, the reporter found that in the national food safety standard milk powder (GB19644 - 2010), the requirements for milk powder include sensory requirements, physical and chemical indicators, pollutant limits, microbial limits, food additives and nutritional fortifier, and so on 7 requirements, but did not mention the detection of estrogen.

In response, the head of the Ministry of health explained that the Ministry of agriculture had developed a method for detecting estrogen in milk powder.

Food safety standards lag behind

"When we mentioned food inspection standards in the past, we usually use 3 words to summarize."

Liu Junhai said, the first word is "scattered", because many departments have their own standards, health departments have standards, the Ministry of agriculture has standards, quality inspection bureau has standards, these standards are very scattered.

The second word is chaos, which is not scientific enough.

For example, the food hygiene standard says that the steamed bread must be round and not square; the Lantern Festival must be round and oval.

As a matter of fact, such standards are useless standards. The shape of steamed bread and lantern is not important. What matters is safety. Therefore, there should be no standard, but there should be many criteria.

Liu Junhai said, the third word is "bad", that is, the lack of forward-looking perspective, with the characteristics of hysteresis.

For example, the Sudan red food hygiene standard was not detected before Sudan incident happened, and there was no standard for the detection of melamine before the Sanlu incident.

"We always have consciousness after the incident, which is lagging behind the international food safety standards."

Whether the standards are strict or not, whether scientific or not, whether they are reasonable or not, whether they are safe or not, are directly related to the personal safety of consumers.

The formulation and implementation of strict food safety standards is the prerequisite for truly achieving source control and prevention.

The food safety law promulgated in 2009 stipulates that the national standards for food safety shall be formulated and promulgated by the health administrative department of the State Council, which has changed the way in which the previous national standards for food hygiene jointly promulgated by the State Council Standardization Administration and the State Council health administration departments are more conducive to the timely issuance of food safety standards and the clarifying of the responsibility subjects.

Liu Junhai said that food safety standards are mandatory standards and must be observed.

In order to make the publication scientific and credible, it is also necessary to set up a food standard review committee.

Reporters learned that even though the food safety law has made provisions on the relevant issues of food safety standards, industry experts believe that the current situation of food safety standards is still not satisfactory.

For food safety, administrative accountability should also be changed and strengthened.

"Imperfect accountability mechanism is one of the important reasons for food safety supervision."

Wang Jingbo said that the current accountability for food safety supervision is mainly focused on some obvious illegal behaviors, and rarely involves illegal activities such as laziness and omission.

Take the development of standards as an example, this is also the responsibility of the executive authorities.

Wang Jingbo believes that the key to solve the problem of food safety supervision is to strengthen the supervision of food safety supervisors, establish and strictly implement routine management system such as inspection and supervision, and execute a major food safety accident veto for the principal responsible officials.

In addition, Wang Jingbo also suggested that the testing agency as a public institution, although it is conducive to maintaining the authority of the test, but also caused the test itself to be monopolized and the public power was changed.

"I personally believe that with the advance of China's overall reform, these institutions that are engaged in technology identification should be divorced from the government departments and become an intermediary agency of the society."

Liu Junhai suggested that when formulating food safety standards, consumers' right to speak should be increased.

"Food safety standards should be based on the results of food safety assessment.

Food safety risk assessment is a long-term and dynamic mechanism.

Hidden dangers in food safety are likely to emerge with the development of science and technology.

Therefore, we should establish dynamic food safety monitoring and evaluation, monitor foodborne diseases, food contamination and harmful factors in food, and evaluate biological, chemical and physical hazards in food.

The introduction of food safety standards should be based on international standards and international risk assessment results.

In addition, the formulation of standards should be aimed at protecting the health of consumers. The contents are scientific, reasonable, safe and reliable. Consumers should be widely heard when formulating standards, and consumers have the right to speak in the process of standard setting. "