HK wants tougher food laws after recent scares

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HK wants tougher food laws after recent scares
30 Nov 2006 05:48:45 GMT
Source: Reuters


HONG KONG, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Hong Kong has called for tougher laws to allow the mandatory recall of food items found to be contaminated, the city's top health official said on Thursday after a spate of food scares.

Eggs tainted with a carcinogenic industrial dyes, freshwater fish with traces of toxic chemicals and formaldehyde-laced bean curd have been detected by food safety officials in recent weeks.

"Yes, we absolutely would like to legislate to regulate the trade. There are some inadequacies, and legislating would be intended to address all these problems," York Chow, Hong Kong's Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, told a special legislative council meeting to discuss food safety.

Hong Kong laws only allow the government the right to seize tainted food, but not the power to prohibit the sale of contaminated food items. Most of the former British colony's food comes from across the border in China.

By boosting its enforcement powers, the government said it could act more effectively to freeze the sale of potentially dangerous foods and track down the source of suspect products.

Hong Kong has been among several Chinese cities to be hit by eggs tainted with the industrial and cancer-causing Sudan IV dye, mixed in with chicken feed, to make egg yolks redder and therefore more expensive.

Hong Kong has so far only detected a small number of Sudan dye tainted eggs -- two salted ducks eggs and five hen eggs -- but the scandal has undermined public confidence in food safety, particularly after officials at first denied any such imports.

Hong Kong imports 90 percent of its food and has been at the mercy of food traders who've used unscrupulous means to make a profit and get around perfunctory supervision.

Its porous land and sea borders also make Hong Kong vulnerable to smuggling of contraband fish, meat and vegetables from unregistered suppliers.

Fresh-water aquatic imports from Chinese fish farms have been a recurrent problem in recent years, with traces of toxic substances, such as the anti-fungal chemical malachite green, often showing up in fish and eels despite a ban.

Guangdong fish suppliers, however, claim that Hong Kong's standards are too stringent and recently suspended fresh-fish exports to the city in an apparent protest, causing a fish shortage in local wet-markets.