The Bureau of Food Safety announced yesterday it would take legal action today if two companies do not cooperate in the investigation into the whereabouts of contaminated milk power from China.
The Department of Health (DOH) said on Monday that it had tracked down all the milk powder that had not yet been consumed.
But this was contradicted yesterday when deputy bureau director Hsieh Ting-hung (謝定宏) said that 298 packages of tainted powder were unaccounted for because some middleman companies had refused to disclose their clients.
The bureau said it would prosecute recalcitrant companies for violating Article 191 of the Criminal Code if the firms continued to refuse to cooperate with the investigation.
NAMING NAMES
Taiway Technology Co in Taoyuan County and Wabake in Taipei County have refused to say to whom they sold the tainted powder.
Bureau officials said that 231 packages from Taiway are unaccounted for as well as 67 packages from Wabake.
Hsieh called on the two companies to provide information on the missing powder.
Some companies had been falsely reported to have sold or bought the tainted powder, and their names were taken off the list after it was confirmed they were not involved, Hsieh said.
Twenty-five tonnes of toxic milk powder produced by China-based Sanlu Group was imported into Taiwan on Jun. 23 by the New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra.
One of Sanlu’s distributors in China allegedly sensed something was wrong two months ago when Sanlu halted production of its brandname milk powder in mid-July.
Sanlu later admitted its milk powder contained melamime, a chemical used in plastic, which could cause kidney stones in humans.
The Chinese Web site NetEase reported that the owner of a Chinese food processing company, surnamed Ma, said that Sanlu had halted production in July and taken its milk powder off the market on Aug 6.
The Web site quoted him as saying he thought the moves were suspicious but Sanlu refused to explain what was going on.
Sanlu brand manager Su Chang-sheng (蘇長生) said that Sanlu had notified all its distributors as early as Aug. 5 that milk powder produced between March and Aug. 5 was contaminated and needed to be taken off the market.
MORE CONTAMINATION
Meanwhile, China announced yesterday that a total of 69 products made by 22 companies contained various amounts of melamime.
China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has launched a series of inspections on the presence of melamime in infant products, China Central Television reported.
All 22 companies have been told to take the products off the shelves immediately.
Meanwhile, DOH officials are trying to determine if any of the 69 products have been imported into Taiwan.
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