A court in the US state of Georgia in a verdict delivered last week sent the former owner of Peanut Corporation to jail for 28 years for marketing of peanut butter contaminated with salmonella (a genus of rod-shaped bacteria that causes food poisoning). His brother, who worked as food broker for the company, was also sent to jail for 20 years. In 2008 and 2009, nine persons died and 700 others fell sick after consuming the butter and other products of the Peanut Corporation.
If Bangladesh authorities were tough on adulterators and producers of contaminated foods and courts imposed severe penalties on offenders, hundreds would have been in jails by now serving long sentences. Unfortunately that has not happened. Why? Reasons are quite understandable.
There are reasons to suspect that adulterated and contaminated foods in this country are taking lives of innumerable people every year. But there is no official record of most of such deaths. Consumers, hospitals and authorities concerned are not adequately alert in this connection. The death from consumption of contaminated food is taking place both instantly and after suffering for long time. However, there is no way of knowing it.
Most hospitals, private and public, do not have facilities for conducting autopsy and viscera tests. Only a selected number of large government hospitals do have the facilities. But these hospitals are so overburdened with autopsy jobs that they generally skip the detailed tests and examinations to ascertain the actual causes of deaths of victims of food poisoning. Â
In Bangladesh, the issues of food adulteration and contamination are usually taken seriously by the media and a section of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Occasionally, the authorities employ mobile courts to detect food adulterators. When detected, the courts impose fines, in most cases. A few are sent to jail for a few months. But the offenders concerned manage bail and come out of the prison.
The Peanut Corporation owner was awarded the toughest ever punishment in food-related offences in the USA because of the fact that he was aware of the contamination before marketing of the food products of his company. This kind of crime has been very rare in that country. That is why the judge was exceptionally tough on all the persons accused in the case.
But in this country food items are contaminated or adulterated with harmful ingredients consciously and also sold to the consumers consciously. The crime is committed rather openly and brazenly.
The Peanut owner sought forgiveness from the judge saying that he was repentant and ashamed of what he had done. But the judge ignored his plea.
Here the criminals adulterating food items are never found remorseful for the crime they are committing. Some of them even do not have the mental capability to understand the graveness of their criminal activities.
However, the high level of insensitivity among this particular section of people has developed mainly because of a sort of impunity they have been enjoying for years. And the impunity originates from the indifference on the part of the government agencies concerned to the problems of food adulteration and contamination.
On occasions, the members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) as part of mobile courts conduct raids in restaurants, food outlets and little known manufacturers of food items in Dhaka. The courts impose fines or send offenders to jail for a brief period or subject them to both for adulterating food items or producing the same in very unhygienic conditions. Even one or two famous food chains in the recent past were made to pay fines in heavy amounts for selling stale foods.
The conditions in which some eateries produce food items are even beyond the wildest imagination. Had they been in the USA or any other developed western country, the owners would have faced at least 100-year prison sentence each, it seems.
The government has constituted an agency, called, the National Consumers' Rights Protection Department, to protect the interests of the consumers. But millions of consumers across the country do not know the existence of the department that was formed six years back. The department is yet to become visible through its actions in line with the objectives behind its formation.
In 2013, the government also enacted the Safe Food Act replacing a very old and ineffective act to stop widespread food adulteration through commissioning of separate courts for the disposal of food-related crimes.
The Safe Food Act has categorised 23 offences for which criminals will face maximum five years in jail or a fine of Tk 1.0 million. Of the offences 13 are non-bailable.
The maximum punishment for adding radioactive ingredients or heavy metals to food stuffs is four years in jail or Tk 800, 000 fine or both.
The highest punishment for adding insecticides, hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals above permissible limits is three years in jail or a fine of Tk 600, 000 or both.
Owners of restaurants and hotels, causing health hazards to consumers, will face a maximum prison sentence of three years or a fine of Tk600, 000 or both.
Prior to the adoption of the law, its content should have been discussed in important public forums because of the fact that it is directly related to the physical wellbeing of the consumers.
Is a maximum jail sentence of four years or a fine of Tk 800,000 for adding radioactive materials or heavy metals to food enough? Those elements have all the potential to cause cancer of various types to humans. Equally, is the prison term of three years or a fine of Tk 600,000 sufficient for adding insecticides, hormones and harmful antibiotics to food?
The debate over punishment, however, appears irrelevant for even the relatively light punishment has not been meted out to any notable number of offenders until now.
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Georgia court verdict and food safety in this country
Shamsul Huq Zahid | Published: September 28, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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