Part 5: There is no barrier in the fight against western medicine, fake supplementary foods

Chief of the Standing Office of National Steering Committee 389 Dam Thanh The

Faced with this situation, the National Steering Committee 389 has advised the Prime Minister to issue Directive 17 / CT-TTg on 19 June 2018, strengthening the fight against smuggling, trade fraud, trading in counterfeit goods and low quality goods in the category of pharmaceutical products, cosmetics, functional foods, medicinal herbs and traditional medicine. Chief of the Standing Office of National Steering Committee 389 Dam Thanh answered the interviewer from the Customs Newspaper on this issue.

Many Vietnamese are poisoned by food problems, pharmaceutical drugs, and poor quality nutritional foods. How do you rate this issue?

Over the past time, the Standing Office of the National Steering Committee 389 has received many cases and information related to the production and trading of counterfeit and substandard goods belonging to the group of pharmaceutical products, cosmetics, and nutritional foods.

The Standing Office has coordinated with ministries, sectors and localities to grasp the situation, investigate and evaluate many cases, and found that the situation of smuggling, trade fraud, production of counterfeit goods, poor quality goods, especially cosmetics, supplementary foods, pharmaceuticals are still complicated. However, the rate of detection and treatment is low; violations occur using a variety of methods, sophisticated tricks, and wide range of activities from urban to rural and mountainous regions. Violators have taken advantage of the shortcomings of the policy mechanism, loopholes in the management and restrictions of consumers, to produce, distribute, form lines and gangs to produce for consumption.

The cause of this situation is the awareness of the ministries, branches, localities and related forces of authorities relating to this work is not deep, not active, or drastic in the fight against smuggling, trade frauds, counterfeit goods, and they have managed loosely. The legal system is not synchronous, the feasibility is not effective, the sanction is not strong enough, lack of standards, technical regulations management for supplementary foods. Booming Internet services and business activities, advertising on websites and social networking sites make it easy for consumers to receive information and make purchases of health care products. There is a lot of inaccurate information on the use of many nutritional foods that have stimulated the demand for these products on the market.

The alarming effect on the health of consumers disturbs the market, as well as damaging production and business. Facing this situation, the Standing Office has advised the Head of the National Steering Committee 389 to draft a Directive on strengthening the fight against smuggling, trade fraud, the production and trading of fake goods. It is in the category of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and supplementary foods and the Prime Minister has issued Directive No. 17 / CT-TTg dated June 19.

After the Instruction No. 17 / CT-TTg was issued, what has been done by the Standing Office to improve the efficiency of this work?

- In order to implement Directive 17 / CT-TTg, the standing office is presenting to the Director of National Steering Committee 389 to develop and promulgate steering plans for ministries, sectors, localities and related forces that maintain the baseline survey, identify the location, identifying the subject in order to inspect and strictly handle serious violations according to regulations. The fight is against smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeiting in general is not prohibitive, especially the production and trading of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, supplementary foods, food and drink relating to health of consumers.

Once the Head of National Steering Committee (389) has planned, the Standing Office will inspect, urge and receive information from ministries, branches, localities and related forces, and step by step advising to improve the efficiency of this work. In particular, it is necessary to clearly define the responsibilities of each area and staff to perform the task. If there is any local smuggling, trade fraud, counterfeit goods, they will be held responsible.

Over the past time, in many localities cases of production arose of business medicines, bad quality and fake supplementary foods, that were seriously detected by related forces. In your opinion, what are the responsibilities of site management?

Over time there were many unfortunate occurrences relating to production and trading of pharmaceutical products, supplementary foods. In each case, the National Steering Committee 389 has promptly and severely handled the cases for prosecuting criminal liability, instituting criminal cases, detaining subjects and recovering material evidences that violate the law.

In addition, the standing office is coordinating with the relevant authorities to determine the responsibilities of the head of the unit not to cause complicated and prolonged cases affecting the social order and safety.

It is hoped that the media, people in cooperation with the Permanent Bureau will receive information to commend good deeds and at the same time verify and handle negative information from the people.

Thank you Sir!