Zhang Jinze, deputy president of China's Child Food Science
Society, in Beijing on Sunday suggested unified regulations on
child food security by establishing a department to handle all the
related cases.
In an interview with Xinhua during the ongoing First
International Forum on Children Development in Beijing, Zhang said
that the decentralized administration of child food security
produced various regulations and different formulas for making a
certain child food and resulted in overlapping and inefficiency in
administration.
He said that this situation should be rectified by establishing
a special department authorized by the central government to make
unified regulations of child food security and give unified
formulas for making child food and drugs.
Zhang said the lack of a unified formula for making baby milk
powder gave illegal manufacturers profiting chances as each baby
food producer made milk powder with its own formula even without
clinical advise of health authorities.
Last April, The inferior-quality milk powder led to the death of
12 children and disfigured 229 babies in Fuyang city of east
China's Anhui
Province.
Official statistics show that China has about 290 million
children under 14 years old, accounting for 23 percent of the total
population.
Children as a vulnerable group, Zhang said, child food security
ought to top the government agenda.
(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2005)