Strictly punish the production and trading of dirty food.

SGGP 07/24/2023 08:11

The Food Safety Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City recently conducted a surprise inspection and discovered three establishments in Cu Chi, Hoc Mon districts and Thu Duc City selling chemically soaked banana stems and water spinach.

This once again rings the alarm bell, the issue of food safety and hygiene in the city has reached an alarming level, making consumers always feel uneasy because they are surrounded by dirty food. Public opinion continues to ask: How many undiscovered establishments that do not ensure food safety are silently killing their fellow countrymen day and night?

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health , in the first half of this year, our country has had thousands of food poisoning cases, including many serious cases such as botulism poisoning, alcohol poisoning, forest mushroom poisoning or poisoning due to collective eating and drinking... affecting people's lives, health and money.

Never before has food safety become such a top concern as it is today, when food poisoning cases are becoming more and more common in localities. Dirty food still exists, threatening the health and lives of the community, affecting the quality of the race and causing cancer, taking the lives of many people.

According to the Global Cancer Organization (GLOBOCAN), every year in our country, about 180,000 people suffer from cancer and tumors, and every day hundreds of people die from these diseases, and one of the reasons is dirty food. What is alarming is that every day, every hour, in addition to the direct causes, many people are contributing to harming the community and themselves for immediate profits with banned chemicals and pesticides.

In recent times, food safety work in our country has always received the attention of leadership and direction from the entire political system from the central to local levels. Typically, at the end of 2022, the Secretariat issued Directive 17 on "Strengthening food security and safety in the new situation", emphasizing: strengthening inspection, examination and supervision of food security and safety work; resolutely combating, preventing and strictly handling organizations, individuals, production and business establishments that violate regulations on food security and safety; proactively preventing negativity and group interests in the field of food security and safety. Ho Chi Minh City is also urgently establishing a Department of Food Safety to manage, tighten and have the authority to more severely punish food safety issues for more than 8.9 million people in the area.

More than ever, the authorities need to adjust the legal documents and regulations related to food safety and hygiene to suit the situation of the country; overcome the overlapping and shirking of responsibilities that reduce the effectiveness of state management of legal documents related to food safety. Using clean and safe food is a legitimate demand of the people and that must become a reality in the near future.

To meet this, food safety and hygiene must be dealt with immediately and seriously. The path from the stomach to the cemetery is short or long depending on the capacity of management agencies, the responsibility of production and business establishments and the awareness of consumers.

It is time to consider the act of trading, transporting, processing and consuming dirty food as a crime and must be handled appropriately, even prosecuted before the law.

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