JEDDAH: The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) said the administration has warned against consumption of bottled water that fails to comply with health and production requirements, an official at the SFDA said.
These bottled waters are unfit for human consumption, the official said.
Violators of production requirements will be defamed and penalized after issuance of a decision from the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution, the SFDA announced on its website.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Nasser, executive director for Control of Local Markets at the SFDA, said the warning mechanism is subject to specific standards determined and approved by the Royal Court, and any violating companies will have their production lines stopped for violating safety and health requirements and imposing danger to human health until they correct their conditions.
As for the presence of water companies with poor quality during the month of Ramadan, he said, “the SFDA monitors compliance of all water factories with requirements for production of bottled water and ice throughout the Kingdom through a comprehensive monitoring program that includes inspection visits and testing of random products at the factory and local market to ensure safety and quality.”
The SFDA had stopped production lines of 66 bottled water factories throughout the Kingdom on May 29, after inspectors found that 48 percent of water factories in the Kingdom produced products that were not fit for use, and violated safety and production requirements.
Violations related to manufacturing, health, and other irregularities, including increased proportion of bromate in bottled water to sterilize the product, which can lead to the presence of tumors in several parts of the body such as the kidney and thyroid glands, as studies by the Agency for Research on Cancer on male rats have shown. However, as to whether such effects are likely to also occur in humans, there remains insufficient evidence.
In light of such suspected effects on human health, the International Bottle Water Association together with the regulators in US, Europe and Canada have worked to lower the maximum allowable bromate in bottled drinking water to 10 ppb.
The Saudi standards on bottled drinking water were also modified on 7-1-1430 to set the maximum permitted limit of bromate to 10 ppb, rather than 25 ppb, based on recommendations from the SFDA.
SFDA warns firms, factories against ‘unfit’ water bottles
SFDA warns firms, factories against ‘unfit’ water bottles
