Ministry hit for 'harmful' toothpaste

In the annual parliamentary inspection of government ministries, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety was criticized for its lax management, notably harmful substances contained in children’s toothpastes. / Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is being criticized for its alleged lax monitoring of children’s toothpastes following recent reports that some of the products contain harmful substances.

Lawmakers cast doubt on whether parabens, a preservative used in some cosmetic and pharmaceutical products, and triclosan, an antibacterial agent, are safe for children, Tuesday.

During a National Assembly inspection session, Rep. Kim Yong-ik from the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) pointed out that the ministry allows 0.2 percent of parabens in a toothpaste, but only 0.02 percent in a mouth-cleaning wet tissue.

“I don’t understand why the two products have a different standard for parabens, given that both of them are used for infants and toddlers,” he said.

He said that children’s toothpaste is actually bigger concern as they could swallow it when brushing their teeth.

According to the ministry, there are 86 kinds of children’s toothpastes that contain parabens on the domestic market.

Rep. Kim Jae-won from the governing Saenuri Party said the ministry needs to reconsider how much parabens and triclosan should be allowed in all toothpastes, noting that they have been banned in some part of the United States and Europe.

In fact, after Denmark banned parabens in lotions and other cosmetic products for children under 3 in 2010, the European Commission decided to follow suit early this year amid a controversy over its potential long-term harmful effects.

Besides, some leading U.S. medical hospitals and companies, including Kaiser Permanente and Johnson & Johnson, either already removed triclosan or have a plan to remove it from their products.

The ministry currently allows 0.2 percent of parabens in a toothpaste. But it has no regulations about the amount of triclosan.

Minister Chung Seung promised to review the standards.

Also, the ministry was criticized for its lax quality control of drugs.

As a result of it, Saenuri Party lawmaker Moon Jeong-lim said, there have been 500,000 cases of adverse drug reactions over the past five years such as rashes and fever.

Lawmaker Nam Yoon In-soon from the NPAD joined the commotion, saying that 23 medicines and medical supplies have been removed from the market, from the beginning of last year to this June, after the ministry re-checked their quality.

Meanwhile, Rep. Kim Hyun-sook from the Saenuri Party raised a question on the ministry’s “questionable” relationship with some pharmaceutical companies.

The companies have spent 5.7 billion won ($5.3 million) on the overseas trips of the ministry’s foreign inspection division officials, who have authority to give approval for licensing their products.

In the similar vein, prosecutors raided the offices of the ministry recently over allegations that the results of safety tests on imported food were fabricated in favor of one company.

The probe is based on an administrative lawsuit filed by a food importer, who claimed that it was banned from importing skewered chicken from China because the ministry manipulated the results of safety tests that it conducted.