Is it safe? Is it honest?

Both the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the advertising industry should clean up their respective ranks. That’s because certain products sold in supermarkets and similar outlets, and promoted in print and broadcast media advertisements, threaten public health and public safety.

Last September, the Food and Drug Administration warned the public against buying a popular brand of liver spread because it wasn’t properly registered with the regulatory agency. Good grief! That product has been around for the longest time. Why it was even allowed to be sold in stores raises a big question.

For the past several years, certain so-called food or nutritional “supplements” have been advertised on primetime television. The “supplements” often consist of tablets or pills in attractive colors.

Each TV advertisement or “spot” promotes the pill as a wonder medicine with the power to protect the human body from harmful substances and bad eating habits. The spot lasts from anywhere from 10 to 15 seconds.

At the end of each spot, there is an oral disclaimer stating that the product concerned is not a medicine and is not supposed to serve as a medication for any kind of illness or disease. The entire oral disclaimer is announced at breakneck speed, lasting about a little more than a second.

If the “supplement” advertised is not a kind of medicine and does not have medicinal properties, why does the spot promote the “supplement” as something with healing capabilities?

Those spots bear the badges of fraudulent or misleading advertising prohibited under the Consumer Act of 1991. They should be investigated by the Department of Health and the DTI because public health and public safety are on the line.

Private professional groups like the Advertising Standards Council and the Philippine Association of National Advertisers should also find out if these advertisements are in accord with the ethical standards obtaining in the advertising industry.

Many canned meat products from Communist China have an international reputation for their alarming levels of lead content. Despite this red flag, those products are still sold in stores.

A potato chip product touts itself on its front label as a product of the United States. At first glance, it looks like an American snack product, but its fine print at the back of the bag indicates that it is locally made.

Another junk food manufacturer produces snacks with artificial flavors like cheese, barbecue, shrimp, etc. Its factory uses only one type of starchy batter for all the snacks, and the final products are differentiated by their flavoring and their shape.

A popular powdered orange juice product states on its label the catchy but misleading phrase “real orange taste.” The words “real orange” suggest that the product is made of real oranges, but the only thing “real” happens to be the mere “taste” of what real oranges taste like — a taste made possible by artificial flavorings.

Many instant noodle manufacturers use harmful wax to make their noodles look good to eat. When one boils the raw noodles in water, one will see the wax residue floating in the hot water. The rest of the wax remains on the noodles and is ingested by consumers.

One person I know who has close friends in the instant noodle manufacturing industry absolutely refuses to eat instant noodles.

Some nice-looking small plastic food containers sold in supermarkets and wet markets do not indicate where they were manufactured. Likewise, there are supermarkets that sell imported chocolates that do not state where they are made.

The idea that harmful or substandard products can still find their way to store shelves, or are advertised on television, is very unsettling for Filipino consumers. Something has to be done about this anomaly.

Since the DTI will be making its usual rounds of supermarkets and similar outlets this month to monitor the prices of yuletide food commodities, it should also take a look at those products that ought to be removed from store shelves for reasons of public health and public safety.

“The idea that harmful or substandard products can still find their way to store shelves, or are advertised on television, is very unsettling for Filipino consumers.

“Those spots bear the badges of fraudulent or misleading advertising prohibited under the Consumer Act of 1991.