India to have food regulatory body

Online at: http://www.rxpgnews.com/indianhealthcare/India-to-have-food-regulatory-body_23190.shtml

RxPG News (Source: IANS)

10 April 2007


India to have food regulatory body

'We have tried everything but it has been of no use. So now we have decided to put scary photos of cancer patients on them to discourage consumers,' he said on the sidelines of the summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry - and the Food and Agriculture Organisation - of the UN.

By IANS, [RxPG] New Delhi, April 10 - India will soon have a food regulatory body to address issues such as food quality and safety, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said here Tuesday.

'We have been concerned with integration of our food laws, many of them item-specific and dealt with by different agencies, and hence we have recently enacted the Food Safety and Standards Act as an integrated food law that will be administered by a single autonomous and scientific regulatory body,' Ramadoss said while inaugurating an international food summit.

'The body will be set up in four to five months and it will be headed by a food commissioner,' he added.

He said all tobacco products would from June 1 bear photographs of patients suffering from cancer caused by tobacco consumption as further warning. 'We have tried everything but it has been of no use. So now we have decided to put scary photos of cancer patients on them to discourage consumers,' he said on the sidelines of the summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry - and the Food and Agriculture Organisation - of the UN.

The two-day summit, attended by participants from the US, Europe, Ireland, Brazil, Malaysia, New Zealand and Thailand, aims to create a roadmap for India on food standards and its implementation.