NAFDAC, NMA to end harmful oil in 2019

NATIONAL Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC) and Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) have agreed to eliminate harmful oil in the country by December 2019.

The partnership will ensure reduction of the consumption of Trans Fatty Acids (TFAs) to not more than two per cent.

A committee, comprising representatives from NAFDAC, NMA, and relevant stakeholders, will be inaugurated on Friday, to drive the policy.

Recently, World Health Organisation (WHO) called for elimination of TFAs from the global food supply, and released an action package, called REPLACE, that included policy recommendations and interventions for governments to pursue.

Speaking yesterday when the leadership of NMA visited the management of NAFDAC in Abuja, Director General of NAFDAC Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye said the agency would work with NMA to save lives.

Adeyeye described as worrisome the high rate of sudden deaths in Nigeria, with many attributed to diet.

She stressed: “I don’t know how many Nigerians have died of Trans Fatty Acids and hydrogenated oils.”

The NAFDAC chief called for more advocacy to sensitise the people on the danger of consuming toxic oil.

“We have to talk to our people that fatty oil kills,” she stressed.

Hence, she said NAFDAC would work with NMA to ensure that the date was achieved.

“We are all on the same page on the issue of TFAs and hydrogenated oils,” she added.

On the issue of policy, she said the country needed a policy; something both parties agreed to, leading to the committee to midwife a policy to eliminate harmful oil.

Earlier, NMA President Dr. Francis Faduyile said TFAs were toxic chemicals unarguably implicated in the epidemics of sudden deaths in Nigeria traceable to heart attacks.

Faduyile noted that research by Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), showed that 44 per cent of sudden death is from hypertension; other are heart-related.

“All of them have something to do with diet,” he added.

NMA president also stressed:  “We are here today as part of our efforts to collaborate with industry stakeholders to work through the policy process to see the restriction of the content of TFAs in our food chain to not more than two per cent while hydrogenated oils, such as those in margarines are banned in Nigeria.”