By Carlo P. Mallo
BEWARE of spurious food products including herbal drinks promising to be a cure to all kinds of diseases, including cancer.
Most of them may turn out to be doing more harm than good.
This was the stern warning issued by the Davao regional office of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an agency attached to the Department of Health.
During yesterday’s Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao annex, FDA food and rug regulation officer Arnold Alindada warned consumers against buying imported slimming products and sex enhancers that do not have the necessary approval from the agency. Large quantities of these products have recently been seized from various malls and establishments in the city’s Chinatown district.
Aside from the Chinatown district, the FDA 11 also discovered several drugstores selling these prohibited items.
Arnold Alindada, food and drug regulation officer of FDA 11, said that they have confiscated over 400 boxes of illegal health products which included slimming tea from Brazil and sexual enhancers from China.
Alindada said that a Dabawenyo physician himself died recently of colon cancer believed to have been contracted after a year of taking a slimming tea from Brazil.
The product, whose brand name is “Brazilian Slimming Tea,” was found to contain carcinogenic elements, Alindada said, although he failed to name the cancer-causing elements.
“These banned health products were found in the market, and we confiscated it as early as January of the year. But in August, we found out that its back in the market again,” Alindada said. “Should we find these establishments selling these products again, we will recommend that sanctions be imposed against them.”
The adverse effect of these untested health products is what concerns the FDA 11 the most.
“We have one report wherein a doctor used the slimming tea for a year and was later discovered to have stage 4 colon cancer,” Alindada said.
“These products are oftentimes found to have high mercury content which is no longer fit for human consumption.”
While the agency continues to crack down on the merchants, the products seems to continue entering the market through backdoor entry points like the cities of Zamboanga and General Santos.
“We have coordinated with the Bureau of Customs here in Davao to make sure that it won’t be able to enter the city, but there are areas beyond our control,” Alindada said.
