From 2022 to present, the Ministry of Health has granted registration certificates for 24,643 health food products, of which domestic products account for 84.7%.
Minister of Health: Managing advertising activities of functional foods faces many difficulties
From 2022 to present, the Ministry of Health has granted registration certificates for 24,643 health food products, of which domestic products account for 84.7%.
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The current management of functional foods, pharmaceutical cosmetics and solutions to handle violations are among the issues chosen by the National Assembly to question Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan on the afternoon of November 11.
In a report sent to National Assembly delegates on a number of issues related to the group of questions at the 8th session, the Minister of Health said that the legal system for managing functional foods is relatively synchronous, meeting the requirements of state management.
From 2022 to present, the Ministry of Health has granted registration certificates for 24,643 health food products, of which domestic products account for 84.7%.
The Ministry also issued 201 certificates of food safety qualified facilities meeting good manufacturing practices (GMP) requirements for health protection foods.
The report also stated that the Ministry of Health has issued 6,653 certificates of advertising content; transferred information of 95 violating products on 184 violating links to the Ministry of Information and Communications, and 92 violating products on 165 violating links to the Ministry of Industry and Trade for handling.
The Ministry of Health has conducted and directed localities to inspect, examine, and post-inspecte establishments producing and trading health protection food products, as affirmed by Minister Dao Hong Lan.
Specifically, the Ministry of Health has handled 126 violations, with a total fine of more than 16.8 billion VND.
Localities inspected 941,836 establishments, of which 85,551 establishments had violations, and fined 20,881 establishments, with a total fine of more than 123 billion VND.
The main violations in inspection and examination activities on functional foods, according to the Minister of Health, are mainly related to the production of fake functional foods.
Most of the fake and low-quality functional foods imported into Vietnam have their packaging, labels, and origins changed by the establishments and then sold. These fake products are sold on the market at a cheaper price than the real thing.
Other violations include producing functional foods containing banned substances, producing and trading functional foods that do not meet the declared quality; advertising functional foods as panaceas, false advertising, deceptive advertising, and misleading consumers.
Using images, equipment, uniforms, names, correspondence of medical units, facilities, doctors, pharmacists, medical staff, thank you letters from patients, articles of doctors, pharmacists, medical staff to advertise food is also a violation pointed out through inspection and examination.
Recognizing the limitations, Minister Dao Hong Lan stated that the management of advertising activities for functional foods and health protection foods still faces many difficulties due to the development of online advertising forms.
It is especially difficult to handle violations, especially on social networking sites and advertisements from foreign servers.
Authorities also have difficulty managing sales through new forms such as: advertising through telephone sales consultation, threats, and exaggerating medical conditions to sell functional foods.
The Minister of Health also said that the management shift from pre-control to post-control creates favorable conditions for businesses to self-declare food supplement products and produce and trade immediately after self-declaration without needing the opinion of the management agency.
However, a number of enterprises have taken advantage of this mechanism to implement regulations incorrectly, not sending self-declaration documents to local management agencies, declaring incorrectly, incompletely, or even not declaring the products they produce and trade, leading to many products not being post-inspected and the risk of products not being safe, the Minister acknowledged.
The report also stated many reasons, including that some organizations and individuals disregard the law, health and lives of the community for profit.
Specifically, many people take advantage of the high demand for functional foods to deliberately produce fake functional foods, import functional foods of unknown origin, label them with product lines from the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc., and deliberately advertise falsely in defiance of regulations and ethics.
In the coming time, Ms. Lan said that she will implement many solutions, including strengthening advertising management, especially advertising via social networks.
Publicize the names of violating establishments, violating products, and violating content on mass media according to the provisions of law and have appropriate sanctions; supplement acts and increase the level of administrative fines for violations in the field of advertising to ensure deterrence.
Strengthening management, inspection and examination in the production and trading of functional foods and handling violations is also a solution proposed by the Minister.
Regarding cosmetic management, according to the report, to date, the Ministry of Health has processed 33,938 cosmetic declaration dossiers, the number of dossiers being processed is 3,695 dossiers. Processed cosmetic import orders for research and testing for 28/28 orders. Conducted inspections and assessments of 10 proposed establishments and issued certificates of establishments meeting the principles and standards of "Good Manufacturing Practices for Cosmetics" of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (CGMPASEAN) for 14 establishments.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/bo-truong-bo-y-te-quan-ly-hoat-dong-quang-cao-thuc-pham-chuc-nang-gap-nhieu-kho-khan-d229457.html
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