Local distributor International Pharmaceutical Agency (IPA) Guyana Ltd’s refusal to comply with an order to withdraw Lailac Infant Milk from circulation should see the case being turned over to the police, Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton has said.
Noting that the Government Analyst-Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) works with certain rules, Norton told Stabroek News yesterday that if the IPA is refusing to comply with the orders issued by the entity, then the matter should be turned over to the police for investigation and action. “They should be sanctioned by the police if that is the case,” he said.
He said the FDD has to work on resolving the matter and asked who would have responsibility for turning the matter over to the police, Norton said this falls within the remit of the FDD.
Stabroek News had reported last week that IPA is continuing to challenge a decision made by the GA-FDD to recall the product. Proprietor of IPA Lloyd Singh could not be contacted by Stabroek News yesterday as his phone was off. Concerns have been articulated by the GA-FDD and parents about the quality of the product.
In a series of correspondence beginning on February 11, 2016 and ending on the April 7, 2016 GA-FDD had instructed IPA to “with immediate effect remove from our local market Lailac Infant Milk.”
On April 28 in an invited comment, Minister in the Ministry of Public Health Dr Karen Cummings told Stabroek News that she had been informed that both doctors and mothers have been complaining about the milk. “I have been advised that while it is labelled milk it should not be labelled as such since it is fortified with vegetable oil and not milk fats. Further it is made in France but not sold in France.
We have adopted the standard that any product to be distributed in Guyana must be used in the country where it is produced,” she explained.
According to the correspondence signed by Director of GA-FDD Marlan Cole the importer has been unable to provide evidence that the product is freely sold and distributed in the country in which it is produced, a condition necessary to enable compliance with Food and Drug Regulation (13) of 1977 and the product is labelled infant milk though in the production process vegetable oils were used to replace milk fat in contravention of Codex Alimentarius 1986, a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines, and other recommendations relating to foods, food production, and food safety.
IPA has however provided copies of a letter dated March 14, 2016 which purports to provide the department with a “free sale certificate.” According to this document issued under the name of the French Ministry of Agriculture “the product in conformity with regulation (EC) No 178/2002 can be placed on the French market and in the other member states of the European Union and be exported in the non-EC Member States.”
It goes on to note that the certificate can only be used for exportation outside the EU.
The company maintains that Lailac is a regional brand name for products manufactured by the French Company Nutribio.
In previous correspondence dated March 7, 2016 seen by Stabroek News, Cole instructed IPA “to with immediate effect remove from our local market Lailac Infant Milk.”
He added that “failure to respond will leave the Department with no alternative but to withdraw our cooperation with your company. The Department will in fifteen (15) days from the notification of this correspondence initiate a public recall and seizure of this product if the company continues to defy the Department’s directive.”
However, to date, there has not been a public recall of Lailac Infant Milk.
