Widespread fear that Vietnam's food supply is unsafe

Hanoi - Fearing that foods imported after last month's floods are contaminated with toxic chemicals from China, consumers in Vietnam's capital are wondering just what is left that is safe to eat. "People here now are very worried about food safety as many vegetables, fruits and other foods in the market have no certificate of origin or safety," Tran Dang, the former director of the health ministry's Food Safety and Hygiene Department, said Thursday. "This is a health threat for the community."

Concerns over food safety follow last month's record high floods in northern Vietnam that submerged thousands of hectares of crops.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh, a manager at the Long Bien market, one of the largest in Hanoi, said the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables now being imported from China has doubled in the past month. Chinese products comprise 60 per cent of what is for sale in the market.

"There are many vegetables and other food in the markets that are consumed every day and there's nothing to guarantee they are safe for human consumption," said Ho Tat Thang, deputy chairman the Vietnam Standards and Consumer Association.

In response to fears that imported vegetables are sprayed with chemicals to keep them fresh, the Vietnamese government began testing dozens of imported items from China. On Tuesday, health inspectors said that the six kinds of pesticides they detected were within acceptable levels.

But even a government health official remained suspicious.

"We can not confirm that those are totally healthy because China might have used substances that we don't know," said Trinh Cong Toan, a senior inspector in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Consumers are still nervous after several Vietnamese newspapers falsely reported that the World Health Organization had issued a warning last week stating that nearly a quarter of imported fruits in Vietnam's markets were contaminated with a toxic preservative.

Shelaye Boothey, WHO's press officer in Hanoi, said the international organization issued no such report and she chided the local Vietnamese press for continuing to report the inaccurate information.

Nevertheless, concerns persist.

Nguyen Tien Chi, who was out shopping for dinner with her 10-year-old daughter, said she worried that everything for sale in the market was potentially hazardous.

"It's hard nowadays," Chi said. "There is the foot-and-mouth disease with beef and pork. Bird flu with chicken. Melamine in eggs. And now vegetables are not safe too. What else can you eat?"

Food grown within Vietnam has no guarantee of safety. Indeed, Vietnamese farmers use fertilizers and pesticides on a massive scale as they push to get the maximum yield out of their plots of land.

"I bought a very fresh and good looking apple for my children," said Truong Thi Hao, a housewife who lives in Hanoi. "But when they went to eat it, it was rotten inside. They must use a chemical to preserve it and that's definitely not good."