Importers demand DOH calm fears

Importers of baby milk powder manufactured by France's Celia yesterday called on health authorities to quickly eliminate public concerns over their products after the French company said no contaminated products have ever been exported to Taiwan.

The importers said they hoped see their products back on the shelves as soon as possible, if the Department of Health (DOH) could confirm that the powder is not contaminated so that business can resume.

"We have been seriously hurt," said one employee of Multipower Enterprise Corp (端強實業), an importer of such popular brands as Neoangelac and Stronzon, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Multipower withdrew its eight baby-milk powder products from shelves on April 7 as requested by the health department.

A number of other baby-milk powder brands such as Peipin, Quaker and Anis have also been recalled by importers over the past few days following news reports that formulas using Celia products may have been contaminated by salmonella bacteria.

Sherry Huang (黃祥蓉), marketing director at Standard Foods Corp (佳格), which distributes Quaker baby milk powder, said her company took the initiative to recall four of its products on Monday because protecting consumers' health is its priority.

"If you are a mother, wouldn't you feel anxious?" she said.

The health scare surrounding Celia-manufactured milk powder caused widespread public panic, especially after it was revealed that the government had failed to disclose detailed information in a timely manner.

On March 24, Taiwan's health authorities were notified by the World Health Organization that salmonella bacteria contamination had been found in the French company's products.

The department's initial reaction was to demand that the nation's three distributors stop selling their products.

It did not make public the list of the baby-milk powders produced by Celia until Tuesday.

The health department received a letter from Celia's chairman on Tuesday afternoon that stated the contaminated milk powder had only been exported to Italy and France.

The company was sure that the products sold to other nations had not been polluted, the letter stated.

Chen Lu-hung (陳陸宏), director of the DOH's Food Safety Bureau, yesterday said that despite the letter, there was still a need to recall the baby-milk products because they had the same serial numbers as the contaminated Celia products.

Although Multipower Enterprise and Standard Foods officials said yesterday that the scope of their losses from the recall would be hard to estimate, they were non-committal when asked whether they would seek compensation from the government.

However, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday that Multipower Enterprise had issued a statement on Tuesday claiming that it had already demanded compensation from the DOH.