Ministry Orders Provinces to Confiscate Whitening Cream

 Provincial health officials in Kompong Speu said yesterday that they had begun confiscating Cao Cap skin whitening cream to comply with a Health Ministry order issued Sunday banning the cream, which is believed to be toxic and is suspected in the deaths of two people, Or Vanthen, director of Kompong speu provincial health department, said that after the ministry's order, the department confiscated "a lot" of containers of Cao Cap as well as other skin whitening creams with no brand name. He said health officials would be checking shops again two months from now. Although the Health Ministry has not yet officially confirmed that Cao Cap actually harmed Mab Siek, 21-who died in Kompong Speu last month after she used large amounts of the cream-Secretary of State Chuo Yinsim said Monday that a nationwide ban would be enforced nonetheless. Health officials went to Phnom Penh's Phsar Olympic market on Monday to confiscate the cream from vendors there. Heng Sam El, a 29-year-old vendor at Phar Olympic, said officials visited some shops, but not his. "My shop never sold it, but I can get it from another store," he said. But not all vendors knew about the ministry's visit. One shop owner who declined to be named had containers of Cao Cap stacked on her counter yesterday. After being informed of the Cao Cap ban by reporters, the vendor started putting the little containers away and said, "I won't buy them anymore from the distributor." Aside from the vendor who sold the cream to Mab siek, nobody else has been arrested for selling Cao Cap despite the ban, said Mr Vanthen of the Kompong Speu health department. "We just told them not to sell it anymore, because it can kill people," he said.