Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan has just sent a report to National Assembly deputies on a number of contents related to the group of questions at the 8th Session of the 15th National Assembly.
Regarding the management of functional foods, the Minister of Health said that from 2022 to present, the Ministry of Health has granted registration certificates for 24,643 health food products, of which domestic products account for 84.7%.
Issued 201 certificates of food safety qualified facilities meeting good manufacturing practices (GMP) requirements for health protection foods.
According to the report, the Ministry of Health has issued 6,653 certificates of advertising content; transferred information of 95 violating products on 184 violating links to the Ministry of Information and Communications, and 92 violating products on 165 violating links to the Ministry of Industry and Trade for handling.
The Ministry of Health has handled 126 violations, with a total fine of more than 16 billion VND.
Localities inspected 941,836 establishments, of which 85,551 establishments had violations, and fined 20,881 establishments, with a total fine of more than 123 billion VND.
The main violations are in the inspection and examination of functional foods and the production of fake functional foods.
Most of the fake and low-quality functional foods imported into Vietnam through unofficial channels are replaced with packaging, labels, and origins by establishments and then sold. These fake products are sold on the market at a cheaper price than the real thing.
Other violations include advertising functional foods as miracle drugs, false advertising, deceptive advertising, misleading consumers; advertising without the competent state agency confirming the advertising content, advertising inconsistent with the confirmed content.
Using images, equipment, costumes, names, correspondence of medical units, facilities, doctors, pharmacists, medical staff, thank you letters from patients, articles of doctors, pharmacists, medical staff to advertise food.
Setting up a fake hotline of doctors, pharmacists, and medical experts to provide incorrect advice on the uses and effects of health protection foods, showing signs of defrauding consumers.
Minister Dao Hong Lan pointed out that the management of advertising activities for functional foods and health protection foods still faces many difficulties due to the development of online advertising forms.
It is especially difficult to deal with violations, especially on social networking sites, advertisements from foreign servers.
Difficulty in managing sales through new forms such as advertising through telephone sales consultation, threats, and exaggeration of medical conditions to sell functional foods.
Regarding the cause, some organizations and individuals, for profit, disregard the law, health and life of the community. Many subjects take advantage of the high demand for functional foods to deliberately produce fake functional foods, import functional foods of unknown origin, label and label products from the US, Canada, Japan, Australia... and deliberately advertise falsely, regardless of regulations and ethics.
In the coming time, the Minister of Health proposed many solutions, including strengthening advertising management, especially advertising via social networks.
Supplementing behaviors and increasing fines in the field of advertising to ensure deterrence.
