Zhang Jinze, deputy president of China's Child Food Science Society, Sunday suggested unified regulations on child food security by establishing a department to handle all the related cases.

In an interview with Xinhua during the ongoing First International Forum on Children Development in Beijing, Zhang said that the decentralized administration of child food security produced various regulations and different formulas for making a certain child food and resulted in overlapping and inefficiency in administration.

He said that this situation should be rectified by establishing a special department authorized by the central government to make unified regulations of child food security and give unified formulas for making child food and drugs.

Zhang said the lack of a unified formula for making baby milk powder gave illegal manufacturers profiting chances as each baby food producer made milk powder with its own formula even without clinical advice of health authorities.

Last April, the inferior-quality milk powder led to the death of 12 children and disfigured 229 babies in Fuyang City of east China's Anhui Province.

Official statistics show that China has about 290 million children under 14 years old, accounting for 23 percent of the total population.

Children as a vulnerable group, Zhang said, child food security ought to top the government agenda.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2005)