Lebanon needs food safety measures

EU: Cyprus needs tougher food safety protections
03.jun.08
Cyprus-Mail
Jacqueline Theodoulou
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=39572&cat_id=1
EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and the House Agriculture and Environment Committees were cited as concluding yesterday there are serious shortcomings in the state’s checking systems on products and foodstuffs imported from third countries.
Regarding the contaminated milk issue, Vassiliou said investigations so far had shown that the dairy companies and Dairy Organization had spotted and withdrawn the affected products.
DISY Deputy Kyriacos Hadjiyiannis called on the Agriculture Ministry to publicly announce the quantities of animal feed that were imported to Cyprus, the importer and how much of it had been sold on to farmers.
“On the animal feed’s arrival to Cyprus, the state had a duty to make sample tests. If these checks had taken place, the aflatoxin would have been spotted within the day and its injection into the food chain would have been averted,” said Hadjiyiannis.
The European Commissioner also informed deputies that Greece and Cyprus had been the last EU member states to withdraw the sunflower oil that was recently found to contain dangerously high levels of mineral oils.

The reason I'm blogging this (which I received in an email) is to say that Lebanon does NOT have any of these measures and has no intentions of initiating them. And that with the food crisi i expect import quality to deteriorate.