Bread

Among life’s meager pleasures in these islands is having a bag of freshly baked pan de sal in the morning, artfully dunked in a cup of piping hot coffee. The better the beans, the better the bread, it seems. The readier we are to start the day.

I’ve been having less of the bread to go with the coffee these days. It is a precautionary measure, given all the talk of cheap Turkish flour coming into our bakeries. The flour is suspected of being contaminated with mycotoxins, cancer-inducing poison produced when mildew develops in moist flour.

A few weeks ago, a howl was raised after someone found a scientific journal article identifying the toxins contained in Turkish flour. There was some amount of speculation about the flour being dumped on us because they were found unfit for human consumption everywhere else.

The flour was, in the main, being imported into the country by a company called Malabon Long Life. There was a claim that the product was being undervalued to pay less duties at the ports — a method resulting in unfair competition, say competing flour producers.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel took the cudgels on this issue. He demanded the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conduct intensive laboratory tests on the questioned flour in order to ensure the safety of Filipino consumers.

The FDA did conduct tests on the flour. A few days ago, they declared the product safe for human consumption.

That would have been that. Tests were done and the product cleared.

But that was not that. Strangely, the Turkish Embassy issued a press release about the flour passing FDA scrutiny ahead of the agency issuing an official report on the matter.

How could the embassy have known the results ahead of everyone else? Why were they privileged with advance information?

Sen. Pimentel finds the circumstances suspicious. It suggests that influential lobbyists were at work, possibly pressuring the regulatory agency to clear the product.

The senator is now raising more questions about the controversial flour imports and the manner these were tested by the regulatory agency. He is demanding greater transparency in the tests conducted and, possibly, a second opinion about the product’s safety.

Do we really have the equipment to make the tests reliable? Do we have the scientific competence to make the results reassuring? Was the flour subjected to tests the same flour imported from Turkey?

Pimentel wants to know more.

Because the Turkish embassy was too quick to announce the results of the tests, the credibility of these tests has come into question. The FDA risks in credibility by informing an interested party of the results ahead of informing the general public. There is a clear procedural lapse here and that undermines the credibility of the results.

We import all our flour. We import the product from all over. The flour we buy from Turkey is significantly cheaper, at least as far as customs valuation goes. That means that importers of Turkish flour make a better margin on the product. They have an immense interest in gaining the FDA’s seal of product safety on Turkish flour.

Turkey, for its part, sells its flour to scores of countries around the world. They claim that their flour, although significantly cheaper, is also safe. Our own authorities must have the final word on that.

Our consumers are anxious, too. We have only recently had to deal with melamine-tainted milk from China. It is not easy for our consumers to trust Turkish flour, given that we are unfamiliar with the integrity of that country’s regulatory agencies.

Even more recently, our consumers had to deal with “magic sugar”, a substance that is much cheaper than regular sugar or traditional sugar substitutes. Quite a number of people became sick after consuming “magic sugar”, precipitating a crackdown on the toxic product. All supplies of the product were destroyed by the authorities.

The procedural lapse that occurred in announcing the FDA test results does not build confidence in the product. The only way to cure this is to repeat the test, this time with greater transparency and full disclosure of the test methods.

It will help if an independent panel of scientists observes the retests. We want to be sure the flour subjected to the tests was not switched. We want samples randomly taken from all known stocks of Turkish flour. Our people need to be assured that our regulatory agency uses state of the art equipment in conducting the retests.

Trust is a difficult thing to restore once broken. Trust for the initial tests of Turkish flour was broken due to the procedural lapse mentioned above. The FDA must try harder to rebuild trust in its regulatory competence.

There are two groups with clear vested interests in getting clearance for the product’s safety. First, the Turks, who want to export as much of their flour as possible. Second, the Filipino importers, who are looking to large profits from trading in this commodity.

Both must be kept away from the tests.

Unless a more credible appraisal of the safety of this flour is done, there will be a lot of consumers who, like me, will forgo the minor pleasure of having bread in the morning, dunked it perfectly brewed coffee blend. Or else, we might demand to have the source of the flour put on the labels.