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The following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a media stand-up session after attending the opening ceremony of a regional symposium on the theme "From Food Incidents to Crisis Management" held by the Centre for Food Safety today (June 1):
Reporter: (About tests on products from Taiwan)
Secretary for Food and Health: The Government has collected quite a number of samples in the last week or so since we discovered the Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) in certain drinks imported from Taiwan. We have banned those drink imports. I think we will be testing more and more products associated with that. I am sure there will be reports every day regarding the products tested, whether they are positive or negative. The relevant department will take measures to ensure those products that are tested positive will be off the market.
Reporter: (About making a decision on whether or not to ban DEHP because of the contamination scare and why isn't the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) being more active, while at the same time the World Health Organisation (WHO) has named CFS as the Collaborating Centre (WHOCC) for Risk Analysis of Chemicals in Food.)
Secretary for Food and Health: I think the reason why we were named as the Collaborating Centre for Risk Analysis of Chemicals in Food by the WHO is because of our ability and expertise, and the scientific base of policies of our Government. It is important that we have to ensure that we have evidence before we ban any substance in Hong Kong. The Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene cannot just say because of public panic or because of suspicion (and therefore) we ban. I think the very good example now being in controversy is the business between Germany and Spain regarding the occurrence of the Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) serogroup O104 infection in Germany. So I think it is important for our government to ensure our integrity intact. The existing law and expertise already allow us to ensure that once we detect anything or we have any evidence of food suspicion, we can ban a certain substance. In this incident from Taiwan, we know exactly the chemical involved and we know exactly where the source of the contamination comes from. We also know what type or category of food or medicine associated with that. So I think we are doing the right thing in ensuring that those products in Hong Kong are being monitored and tested. I think our existing policy also ensures that the damage done to the public will be minimised. DEHP itself does not actually pose any immediate health hazard on ingestion. Only the accumulation of the substance might actually cause health problems and it is accumulated over years of ingestion. I think the risk assessment of our experts allows us to take the right decision at the right time.
Reporter: The US and Europe have already banned DEHP. There is also a study in Hong Kong showing that more than 90% of the residents in Hong Kong have DEHP in their blood. (Based on what criteria do we make a decision on whether or not to ban DEHP?)
Secretary for Food and Health: DEHP is not a substance allowed in food. We do not allow DEHP in food either. It is not in the regulation but in our umbrella ordinance, we do not allow any substance that will be damaging to health. I think this is equivalent to banning the substance already. The second thing is, regarding the blood (being detected with DEHP), according to research done by many researchers, there is always some evidence of trace of DEHP in human blood. It is not necessarily related to food alone. Our exposure to various plastics in our daily lives, there is also a possibility of absorbing those substances into our bodies. I think it is something that we need to research further before we can actually say that this is related to food intake. I think there are a lot of things we need to be certain of before we can actually blame this substance as the only source of DEHP in our bodies.
Reporter: (About resources for testing food from Japan and Taiwan)
Secretary for Food and Health: At the moment, we can mobilise our workers, especially our laboratory resources, to deal with the existing situation. But I think in case of the necessity of continuing monitoring those food items on a long-term basis, we possibly need to have better planning and also more sustainable resources in the months ahead. So we will assess the situation to see whether we need that. But for the crisis situation for a short period of time, I think we have the ability and also the surge capacity to deal with it.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Issued at HKT 14:49
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