Dairy authority reassures consumers local milk is safe

CEBU - Several months after the melamine scare broke out, the National Dairy Authority noticed that some people are still afraid to drink milk even if it’s locally made.

“There is no need to fear the local milk at all because all measures are made to make it safe to drink,” said NDA spokesperson Farina Dy during yesterday’s Kapihan sa PIA.

The Bureau of Food and Drugs had earlier recalled and ordered the pull out of milk products that are tested positive and even those suspected to contain melamine from the shelves of supermarkets following the melamine contamination outbreak in China in September.

Bu Dy said that the incident has increased the sale of locally produced milk products by up to 20 percent last year because the people prefer to buy locally produced milk directly from farms and processing plants.

With this, NDA-7 manager Grace Cenas added that they are finding means to have more farms and dairy animals that could help in milk production. Also, they are encouraging big farms to coordinate with them in order to build breeder farms so that they would not need to depend on importing animals from other countries.

Cenas said melamine can also be good as it contains high amount of protein but it is only something that mimics protein like contents so it is not safe to use in products.

Monina Coyoca of BFAD-7 said that even if it has been quite a long time since the melamine scare broke out, they still discourage people from purchasing and drinking milk products from China.

Meanwhile, Coyoca said they are also closely monitoring the supermarkets and have strictly ordered all the peanut butter products from the United States amid the salmonella scare that hit the foreign country recently.

She however said that they have not heard of any report so far from hospitals of cases that are salmonella related.

Consumers who fell ill after they have eaten peanut butter products are advised to immediately submit themselves to a medical checkup. — AJ de la Torre, CIT MassCom Intern/WAB   (THE FREEMAN)