"My Daughter Was Like a Rag Doll": Czech Senate Admits State Failure in Contaminated Baby Formula Scandal

The Czech Senate has acknowledged serious systemic failures by the state in the case of baby formula contaminated with a toxin that sickened infants. The scandal erupted in early January, when the manufacturer recalled Alfamino formula from the market after cereulide toxin was detected in it, and affected families and senators accused authorities of dragging their feet on communication and failing to act.

At a meeting of the Senate's health committee, the father of one of the affected girls said his daughter had drunk 24 cans of the contaminated formula over two months. "What we went through with our daughter was horrific. She was listless, like a rag doll," he said, describing the child's condition. According to him, doctors had no experience dealing with cereulide — or were not even aware of the problem — and one gastroenterologist even doubted that the specific batch of formula contained the toxin.

Parents had the formula tested abroad

Another mother, whose one-year-old son was fed the same formula and suffered from frequent bouts of diarrhea, spent weeks calling authorities and filing complaints in an attempt to get the product tested — without success. In the end, journalists sent samples of the formula for analysis to the Belgian laboratory Sciensano. The results showed levels nine times above the safety limits for infants in three of the samples.

The woman also disputed a claim made by the Czech Republic's chief hygienist, Barbora Macková, who had said the state had advised parents to have the product tested abroad. "There was no such recommendation," she told the senators.

State admits communication failure

Senator Ondřej Šimečka (ODS) said the biggest failure was that the chief hygienist warned the public only five weeks after the problem was first flagged. Pediatricians were informed about the contaminated formula three months after the first alert in the European RASFF food safety warning system, while parents only found out four months after the whole affair began.

According to the senator, the country has no clear crisis protocol, and authorities refused to test samples offered by the parents themselves, citing the absence of any legal obligation to do so. In the end, it was the Belgian laboratory — to which journalists had sent the samples — that carried out the analysis. Macková admitted there had been failures in coordination between agencies and said the internal crisis protocol was being updated.

It also emerged that the task of informing doctors about the problem had effectively been left to the manufacturer itself, Nestlé, whose sales representatives told pediatricians about the situation informally, in the course of their regular visits. "So I take it this was done neighbor-to-neighbor," committee chairman Tomáš Fiala (ODS) remarked ironically.

Lawmakers preparing new legislation

MP Eva Šrámková (Pirates) is drafting a bill on baby formula safety that would require authorities to notify the public within 24 hours of a RASFF alert and inform pediatricians via the e-prescription system within 48 hours. The law would also regulate how food samples must be stored.

The Senate committee unanimously found serious shortcomings in coordination between state bodies, crisis communication, and the flow of information to doctors and the public, as well as gaps in supply-chain traceability. It also noted a lack of laboratory capacity to detect cereulide. The committee called on the government and the Ministries of Health and Agriculture to present, by the end of the year, an inter-ministerial assessment of the situation along with concrete measures to fix the systemic failures.

Affected parents were left dissatisfied with the outcome of the hearing. "All I heard were general statements about a communication failure. It's still unclear what sanctions the manufacturers will face," said the mother of the affected boy. Meanwhile, the Health Ministry announced a reform of the public health protection system that would merge all eighteen regional hygiene stations and health institutions into a single structure.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz