Posted: April 20th, 2012 - 5:17pm
Source: Daily Star

BEIRUT: A local NGO announced Wednesday a national campaign advocating for food safety, which it said was necessary in the face of government inaction.
The head of the Lebanese Task Force for Nutrition-Related Diseases, Sueiman Jari, said: “Our NGO approached three years ago a ministry that deals with food safety issues in order to team up for a project that was intended to address the gaps of food safety regulations ..., but the ministry turned us down, saying that they didn’t have a budget.”
The group said that according to the most recent statistics, 503 people were hospitalized in 2010 for food poisoning, while unsafe food was blamed for the death of two people last year.
The NGO urged officials to ratify a food safety law which has been in Parliament for several years and conduct strict oversight on food production.