Consumers are expressing outrage after the National Committee of Oral Health
(NCOH) admitted that it has no legal right to certify the quality of oral health
products.
"Except anger, I have no other feelings to express about the case," said Fan
Muxue, a postgraduate student in Communication University of China.
"The committee has cheated consumers for more than 10 years. I will not buy
its certified oral products any more."
On the list of NCOH's certification are many popular oral health products,
such as Crest and Liangmianzhen, and Lotte Xylitol Gum toothpastes.
But NCOH cannot be found on another list of legal institutes authorized by
China's Certification and Accreditation Administration.
In February, a Shanghai lawyer, Chen Jiang, filed a lawsuit against the NCOH
and three other oral health producers for misleading consumers. He cited two
reasons: illegality of certification and accreditation of NCOH and the bribery
deals between NCOH and the certificated, People's Daily reported. The case is
still ongoing.
Zhang Boxue, vice-director of NCOH, said that his committee had rich
experience in certificating oral health products with strict and scientific
measures.
But Jiangsu Snow Leopard Household Chemical CO Ltd, a toothpaste producer
which got the certification and accreditation from NCOH, told Beijing Times that
when NCOH carried on the certification, it picked the toothpaste samples
directly from the factory stock, not from the market randomly.
And the 160 people who attended the experiment were only from an oral medical
school. Everyone got a tube of toothpaste of this brand. After three months,
they came for the first examination. The second product testing came six months
later. It was hard to confirm whether they had used that toothpaste during that
period.
Then NCOH drew the conclusion that the Snow Leopard toothpaste could
effectively help prevent gingivitis.
In another case, when the NCOH certified Lotte Xylitol
Gum toothpaste in 2005, the company gave full financial support to the job of
certification and accreditation. So Chen suspects that the certification was the
result of bribery.