Hazard branded varieties of milk pose
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Syed Fattahul Alim
In an order issued on 23rd October the High Court banned the sale and display of imported powder milks belonging to some eight brands until their laboratory test reports are available and asked the government to implement the directive immediately as well as form a high-powered monitoring committees to oversee if the order is being obeyed at the selling points of those foreign brand milk products. After the ban order was issued, the shops selling various brands of milk did remove the particular brands of milk from the public view, but it does not mean that the sale of the mentioned milks stopped totally. This is, however, a question of obeying the High Court order by the retailers of those milk products on their own or of the existence of sufficient awareness among the public so that they may not buy those products.
To expect that the court order will be automatically respected in this country is to expect the impossible. And if one is talking of the businesses houses, whether the wholesalers or the retailers, conscience had seldom been the strong point of their character. Though making money and profit at all costs is the ultimate goal of businesses everywhere, in our own context one would see this practice of moneymaking in its most extreme form. So automatic compliance with any order whether it is from the court of justice or from the executive branch of the government is the last thing one should expect in this part of the world. In this particular case of the High Court order banning the sale and display of eight brands of foreign milk, the government decision on its compliance, however, came two days later. So, the retailers and wholesalers, who removed those banned brands of milk from open public view, did so more in anticipation of the government order to enforce the court order to come than of their own volition to obey the court order spontaneously.
Government intervention therefore is the minimum precondition that there will be compliance with the court order at the marketplace.
However, on Sunday (October 26), the government or more specifically the ministry of health has declared that the High Court Order on the ban would be ensured forthwith. On this score, the health ministry has informed that Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) would issue a public notice on the public order. The enforcement agencies and other government agencies concerned will also see to it that the ban order is being duly observed, the health ministry announcement further ensured.
The main point of this discussion, however, is not whether the milk products of foreign brands under scrutiny are dangerous for public health and that those should be immediately destroyed so that they may not again be sold in the market in the future. In fact, the brands of foreign-made milk banned for sale and display are still being tested by the BSTI to confirm if they really contain the poisonous ingredient called melamine that has the potential to damage the vital organ, kidney.
So far, it was for the first time in recent memory that the world has been alerted about the melamine contamination in the packaged milk marketed commercially in China. There was another alert in the past about Japanese brand milk that it contained a toxic substance called arsenic.
Returning to the Chinese milk products, the reported victims were not from any country that imported the Chinese milk. The irony is that it was the Chinese children who became the first known victims of their home brand of milk. The first impression was that it is the Chinese brands of milk that were the real culprit and all the fingers were pointed to the Chinese milk. The Chinese government, however, did not waste any time to ban the particular brand of milk as it was found that the milk contained melamine that was far above the permissible limit. With the news spreading like wildfire across the world, in Bangladesh, too, the government and the public became concerned. As a result, the police and the public came down hard on the retailers and the wholesalers who were still selling and displaying Chinese brands of milk and milk products.
And no one even questioned the safety of the other foreign brand milks being sold for decades in the market. In reality, the shelves of the stores in the marketplace are packed with no end of foreign brand powder milks, while each brand of those milks promises the moon to their consumers. Of this plethora of different brands of milk and milk products on sale and display, the most widely circulated and publicised are the infant formulas, which pass for substitutes of breast milk. And what is of greatest concern is that for decades the children of our country have become dependent on these infant formulas as their only food.
The ads on constant display on the TV screen and the newspapers have instilled the belief in parents that these infant formulas are the wonder foods that can keep their children safe, healthy and strong. Though the child specialists often warn the parents about the lack of any substance in these ads and the claims made by these infant formulas, they have still remained beholden to these foreign brands of baby foods and infant formulas. Mothers have forgotten to feed their children breast milk, which contains all the natural nutrients that a child vitally needs for its growth. But among the families bracketed under the middle class in particular, use of these infant formulas and baby foods are more widespread than among the less privileged section of society because the latter cannot simply afford buy these costly foreign brand infant formulas. In a way, it is a blessing in disguise that the poorer section of society has not become so dependent on those baby foods and thereby has been able to keep their children safe from those so-called ambrosia (!).
By detection of melamine in the most widely circulated foreign-brand milks in the market, the Dhaka University chemical laboratory has for the first time made us aware of the fact that the traditional tinned dairy products marketed by the multinational companies are also not beyond doubt. For at least in the primary test, it has been found that in the aforementioned eight brands of milk powders, some of which are ubiquitous in the kitchen shelves of most of the houses of middle class families both in the urban and the semi-urban areas, are also not free from any risk as was thought before. In fact, our unwavering trust in the various brands of foreign-origin products is so deep-rooted and our infatuation for those is so unmitigated that we are ready to take whatever is served on the platter by the famous foreign companies tagged with popular brand names.
It is not being meant to say that all brand products are trash. Whether those are useless or of high quality is not the point at issue here. On the contrary, it is the craze for brands or, saying it more bluntly, the brand-fetish, that is being questioned here. Why should a customer lose the ability to use his critical mind, a faculty they are so apt to exercise when in the kitchen market, where edibles of natural origin like vegetable, fish, meat and so on are sold, when they come face to face with artificial products bearing the seals of some famous foreign companies? It is really a kind of mental slavery. But even if one may excuse the brand-crazy customers for the foreign-made dresses, decorative objects or beauty products, similar fetish for food products, especially baby foods, is inexcusable. It is their responsibility to use their judgement while buying any product that they or their children may consume. And since it is the enlightened middle class people who are the main customers of these foreign brand products, one cannot but pity them for their inability to use their knowledge and more critical eye to determine what is good for them and their children and what they should or should not buy from the market.
The Dhaka University, therefore, deserves thanks for awakening us to the hard fact that the widely circulated foreign brands of milks and milk products are not after all infallible. So, the blind faith the consumers have in them has no genuine basis.
In an order issued on 23rd October the High Court banned the sale and display of imported powder milks belonging to some eight brands until their laboratory test reports are available and asked the government to implement the directive immediately as well as form a high-powered monitoring committees to oversee if the order is being obeyed at the selling points of those foreign brand milk products. After the ban order was issued, the shops selling various brands of milk did remove the particular brands of milk from the public view, but it does not mean that the sale of the mentioned milks stopped totally. This is, however, a question of obeying the High Court order by the retailers of those milk products on their own or of the existence of sufficient awareness among the public so that they may not buy those products.
To expect that the court order will be automatically respected in this country is to expect the impossible. And if one is talking of the businesses houses, whether the wholesalers or the retailers, conscience had seldom been the strong point of their character. Though making money and profit at all costs is the ultimate goal of businesses everywhere, in our own context one would see this practice of moneymaking in its most extreme form. So automatic compliance with any order whether it is from the court of justice or from the executive branch of the government is the last thing one should expect in this part of the world. In this particular case of the High Court order banning the sale and display of eight brands of foreign milk, the government decision on its compliance, however, came two days later. So, the retailers and wholesalers, who removed those banned brands of milk from open public view, did so more in anticipation of the government order to enforce the court order to come than of their own volition to obey the court order spontaneously.
Government intervention therefore is the minimum precondition that there will be compliance with the court order at the marketplace.
However, on Sunday (October 26), the government or more specifically the ministry of health has declared that the High Court Order on the ban would be ensured forthwith. On this score, the health ministry has informed that Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) would issue a public notice on the public order. The enforcement agencies and other government agencies concerned will also see to it that the ban order is being duly observed, the health ministry announcement further ensured.
The main point of this discussion, however, is not whether the milk products of foreign brands under scrutiny are dangerous for public health and that those should be immediately destroyed so that they may not again be sold in the market in the future. In fact, the brands of foreign-made milk banned for sale and display are still being tested by the BSTI to confirm if they really contain the poisonous ingredient called melamine that has the potential to damage the vital organ, kidney.
So far, it was for the first time in recent memory that the world has been alerted about the melamine contamination in the packaged milk marketed commercially in China. There was another alert in the past about Japanese brand milk that it contained a toxic substance called arsenic.
Returning to the Chinese milk products, the reported victims were not from any country that imported the Chinese milk. The irony is that it was the Chinese children who became the first known victims of their home brand of milk. The first impression was that it is the Chinese brands of milk that were the real culprit and all the fingers were pointed to the Chinese milk. The Chinese government, however, did not waste any time to ban the particular brand of milk as it was found that the milk contained melamine that was far above the permissible limit. With the news spreading like wildfire across the world, in Bangladesh, too, the government and the public became concerned. As a result, the police and the public came down hard on the retailers and the wholesalers who were still selling and displaying Chinese brands of milk and milk products.
And no one even questioned the safety of the other foreign brand milks being sold for decades in the market. In reality, the shelves of the stores in the marketplace are packed with no end of foreign brand powder milks, while each brand of those milks promises the moon to their consumers. Of this plethora of different brands of milk and milk products on sale and display, the most widely circulated and publicised are the infant formulas, which pass for substitutes of breast milk. And what is of greatest concern is that for decades the children of our country have become dependent on these infant formulas as their only food.
The ads on constant display on the TV screen and the newspapers have instilled the belief in parents that these infant formulas are the wonder foods that can keep their children safe, healthy and strong. Though the child specialists often warn the parents about the lack of any substance in these ads and the claims made by these infant formulas, they have still remained beholden to these foreign brands of baby foods and infant formulas. Mothers have forgotten to feed their children breast milk, which contains all the natural nutrients that a child vitally needs for its growth. But among the families bracketed under the middle class in particular, use of these infant formulas and baby foods are more widespread than among the less privileged section of society because the latter cannot simply afford buy these costly foreign brand infant formulas. In a way, it is a blessing in disguise that the poorer section of society has not become so dependent on those baby foods and thereby has been able to keep their children safe from those so-called ambrosia (!).
By detection of melamine in the most widely circulated foreign-brand milks in the market, the Dhaka University chemical laboratory has for the first time made us aware of the fact that the traditional tinned dairy products marketed by the multinational companies are also not beyond doubt. For at least in the primary test, it has been found that in the aforementioned eight brands of milk powders, some of which are ubiquitous in the kitchen shelves of most of the houses of middle class families both in the urban and the semi-urban areas, are also not free from any risk as was thought before. In fact, our unwavering trust in the various brands of foreign-origin products is so deep-rooted and our infatuation for those is so unmitigated that we are ready to take whatever is served on the platter by the famous foreign companies tagged with popular brand names.
It is not being meant to say that all brand products are trash. Whether those are useless or of high quality is not the point at issue here. On the contrary, it is the craze for brands or, saying it more bluntly, the brand-fetish, that is being questioned here. Why should a customer lose the ability to use his critical mind, a faculty they are so apt to exercise when in the kitchen market, where edibles of natural origin like vegetable, fish, meat and so on are sold, when they come face to face with artificial products bearing the seals of some famous foreign companies? It is really a kind of mental slavery. But even if one may excuse the brand-crazy customers for the foreign-made dresses, decorative objects or beauty products, similar fetish for food products, especially baby foods, is inexcusable. It is their responsibility to use their judgement while buying any product that they or their children may consume. And since it is the enlightened middle class people who are the main customers of these foreign brand products, one cannot but pity them for their inability to use their knowledge and more critical eye to determine what is good for them and their children and what they should or should not buy from the market.
The Dhaka University, therefore, deserves thanks for awakening us to the hard fact that the widely circulated foreign brands of milks and milk products are not after all infallible. So, the blind faith the consumers have in them has no genuine basis.