Food safety is a serious matter that should not be toyed with since it has a bearing on the health of the people. But what transpired when it came to the safety of three kinds of soft drinks produced by Nongfu Spring Co and Uni-President Co is indeed like a game.

Last month, the soft drink brands were declared as containing levels of arsenic higher than the standards stipulated by the State. They were tested by the Haikou quarantine department, and the city's bureau of industry and commerce immediately ordered the brands to be taken off the shelves in local markets.

However, when the samples of the same batch of drink brands were sent to be retested at the State Quarantine Research Institute in Beijing, the levels of arsenic were confirmed to be within the limit, and therefore safe.

Rather than resolving the row caused by the warning from the Haikou bureau of industry of commerce, the retest result has made things even more complicated. Even after the same local department announced that the three brands of drinks were safe after the retest, the brands are unlikely to regain consumers' confidence. In addition, the incident itself has put a question mark on the credibility of both testing centers.

The testing center of the local quarantine department has the credentials to conduct such tests, and, so too, of course, the central department. But how can they get different results from the same batch of soft drinks?

One of them must be wrong. The announcement by the Haikou bureau of industry and commerce indicates that it was the local testing center that produced the wrong test result. But what is weird is that neither the local quarantine department nor the bureau of industry and commerce has admitted that the local testing center was wrong.

The issue is that we should never take for granted that the test result provided by the State testing center will be authentic simply because it is higher in the hierarchy.

We tend to believe that the retest result should be authentic because the Haikou bureau of industry and commerce has cancelled its order requiring the three brands of drinks be taken off shelves in local markets.

But we are not convinced because we are yet to be told what happened to the first test conducted by the local testing center, and the core details of the incident have still not been made public.

Consumers will not have confidence in the three brands, and maybe other products, of the two companies unless there is transparency about the entire incident. What is even more dangerous is the damage the incident has caused to the credibility of the local government involved and the testing centers of quarantine departments.

A thorough investigation of the whole incident is the only way to fix it.