Albania Minister Faces Grilling on Food Safety Concerns

Albania parliament | Photo by : Hektor Pustina/AP

“On Thursday I deposited a request for a parliamentary hearing with the Minister of Agriculture Genc Ruli,”  Socialist MP Erjon Brace wrote on his Facebook account.

“The scandal is big, the damage is huge and he should come and tell us what are we eating and what diseases are we getting,” he added.

Reports that milk has been contaminated by a dangerous toxin have triggered a major health scare in Albania and the region.

Albania’s National Food Authority has asked two local dairies, Primalat and Fast, to recall their products from the market, but the response has been slow.

An investigation by Balkan Insight revealed that Albanian authorities illegally authorized the use of hormones in cattle fattening, posing a danger to consumers.

While consumers are alarmed by the presence of toxins and hormones in food, Brace said the response of the authorities to the crisis had been inadequate and was "damaging hundreds of thousands family run farms.”