State of public health and political culture
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Syed Fattahul Alim
Death of four babies and sickness of 54,000 children in China after taking melamine-contaminated milk have caused alarm on a global scale about the safety of milk and food products having milk as an ingredient. Bangladesh being a net importer of powdered milk and milk-based food products, it has reason to be seriously alarmed at this development.
Food safety is a serious issue. The advanced nations are extremely sensitive to the issue of food safety. The prompt steps taken by the Chinese government to flush out the market of the culprit milk and the milk-based products like milk bars, candies, cookies, malted health drinks, ice creams, etc from the shelves of the stores in China is an instance of their seriousness about the issue. We are yet to see a similar degree of seriousness and alertness about the problem in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, consumer rights groups in Bangladesh have become vocal about the issue. The government bodies like the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) is responsible for ensuring the quality and safety of food products. But the organisation concerned is yet to come up with the result of their tests about the safety standards of the milk-based products imported from China or elsewhere.
Unlike China or any other developing and developed countries, we are yet to take the issue of food safety with due seriousness. It is only the more informed section among the consumers, who show some concern about the safety of the food and food products they consume. But the common people are least bothered about what they themselves or their children consume. The business community, too, are mostly in the defensive here whenever such reports of adulteration or contamination of foodstuffs are carried by the media. The alarm that was created in Bangladesh over the death and sickness of children in China having to do with the consumption of polluted milk, will also, for all practical purposes, be short-lived. People will again forget the issue. The stores will resume selling the food products, milk-based or otherwise, without much discomfort. With the passage of time, fewer and fewer people will be asking about the quality or safety-level of the food items they would be buying from the shops. So, in a few days things will be back to square one.
Forgetfulness or, worse, lack of concern about issues that affect our physical well-being and safety is a well-known characteristic of our national psyche. To all appearances, we are a people who have resigned to their fate. Even a very sensitive issue like food safety cannot shake us out of our slumber.
One may recall here the uproar created over the use of poisonous preservatives like formalin in fruits, fishes, raw milk and other food products in the market. The media brought the issue into public consciousness and there also followed some government action to combat the menace. Traders at different points of the city were caught red-handed and penalised. But what happened next? Can we now say that the fruits and fishes sold in the market are now free of formalin? Not in the least. The practice of using the dangerous chemical to preserve food items has recommenced with a vengeance. But again, it is the characteristic indifference that has got the better of the public awareness and the commensurate action to fight the danger. Neither the authorities concerned, nor the general consumers now seem bothered about the deadly poison they are allowing to harm public health day after day. However, it is not that the informed section of the consumers is not aware of the health hazards they and their children are exposed to. They certainly are. But they simply lack the will and energy to protest the outrage being committed against the people without let-up.
But the formalin used to preserve foodstuff is not the only source of danger to public health. May perishable materials, most of them foodstuffs, are preserved by the traders with chemicals that are more dangerous than formalin. One such instance is the use of pesticides to preserve fried fish, betel leaves and such other items for human consumption. These poisons have the potential to damage the vital organs of the body like kidney and liver in a gradual fashion. But have we ever seen a serious and sustained effort from the government or the consumer rights groups to force the traders to stop the use of these poisons in the foodstuffs? The members of the public, who, are aware of these kinds of contamination in their foods, take it all lying down.
In this connection, one may also recall the occasional drives by mobile courts to check adulteration in food and other kinds of fraudulence practices in the marketplace. But what has happened to those drives?
The dishonest elements in the business and in every tier of the administration and society are too familiar with this attitude of the rights bodies, the government and the public in general to these issues. So, they are never perturbed by the short-lived furores created in the media and among the public over the reports of contamination in foodstuffs or anything that affects public health.
So, from our previous experience, it is not hard to imagine what is going to happen to the recent hullabaloo over the reports of melamine contamination in the milk and milk products of Chinese origin.
But however much we may like to forget the hazards we are exposed to in the foods and drinks we use in our day to lives, those are not going to leave us alone. Moreover, the instances noted in the foregoing are but the tip of the iceberg. And one should not be surprised either at the increasing size of the crowds at the doctors' chambers, the government hospitals and all the public hospitals for getting cure for a plethora of symptoms for diseases unheard in the past. But need it be said that the root of many of these diseases, especially those related to the gastro-intestinal disorders, is the food they consume?
Oddly though, there has never been any visible attempt at identifying and listing all such sources of danger to the public health, let alone combating those in a systematic and sustained fashion.
Such state of our level of awareness and the preparations to face the dangers ourselves and our future generation are exposed to is hardly commendable. But should this state of affairs be allowed to go like this forever? What have our political parties or the so-called civil society to say about it?
Strangely though, they most often keep mum about these issues. But their silence breaks and one sees violent demonstrations in the street as soon as their partisan interests are under threat. Unfortunately, so far there has never any demonstration on the street organised by the political parties in protest against adulteration or contamination in foodstuffs, or spurious medicines or suchlike issues. To them these are but soft issues not meriting serious attention from them. For they think, struggle for power is their sole domain of work and anything less than that should not bother them much. The civil society, too, is so much beholden to the partisan interests that they, too, do not feel like organising protests or launching campaigns to fight the dealers in death in our marketplaces.
But such lack of focus on the parts of our public leaders, the right groups and the authorities concerned about the issues that affect the physical well-being of the people is unprecedented in any other developing and developed nations of the world. The excuse that we are too poor to address these vital issues does not also stand to reason. In fact, it is time we reordered our political priorities. For all the talk of people's democratic right about which the government and dominant political culture of our country are so occupied with loses its meaning when one tumbles to the reality that the physical health of that very people is under grave threat from the foods they eat and the medicines they take. And at the end of the day, should we not be ashamed at such insouciance about our own health and the safety standards to protect it?
Death of four babies and sickness of 54,000 children in China after taking melamine-contaminated milk have caused alarm on a global scale about the safety of milk and food products having milk as an ingredient. Bangladesh being a net importer of powdered milk and milk-based food products, it has reason to be seriously alarmed at this development.
Food safety is a serious issue. The advanced nations are extremely sensitive to the issue of food safety. The prompt steps taken by the Chinese government to flush out the market of the culprit milk and the milk-based products like milk bars, candies, cookies, malted health drinks, ice creams, etc from the shelves of the stores in China is an instance of their seriousness about the issue. We are yet to see a similar degree of seriousness and alertness about the problem in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, consumer rights groups in Bangladesh have become vocal about the issue. The government bodies like the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) is responsible for ensuring the quality and safety of food products. But the organisation concerned is yet to come up with the result of their tests about the safety standards of the milk-based products imported from China or elsewhere.
Unlike China or any other developing and developed countries, we are yet to take the issue of food safety with due seriousness. It is only the more informed section among the consumers, who show some concern about the safety of the food and food products they consume. But the common people are least bothered about what they themselves or their children consume. The business community, too, are mostly in the defensive here whenever such reports of adulteration or contamination of foodstuffs are carried by the media. The alarm that was created in Bangladesh over the death and sickness of children in China having to do with the consumption of polluted milk, will also, for all practical purposes, be short-lived. People will again forget the issue. The stores will resume selling the food products, milk-based or otherwise, without much discomfort. With the passage of time, fewer and fewer people will be asking about the quality or safety-level of the food items they would be buying from the shops. So, in a few days things will be back to square one.
Forgetfulness or, worse, lack of concern about issues that affect our physical well-being and safety is a well-known characteristic of our national psyche. To all appearances, we are a people who have resigned to their fate. Even a very sensitive issue like food safety cannot shake us out of our slumber.
One may recall here the uproar created over the use of poisonous preservatives like formalin in fruits, fishes, raw milk and other food products in the market. The media brought the issue into public consciousness and there also followed some government action to combat the menace. Traders at different points of the city were caught red-handed and penalised. But what happened next? Can we now say that the fruits and fishes sold in the market are now free of formalin? Not in the least. The practice of using the dangerous chemical to preserve food items has recommenced with a vengeance. But again, it is the characteristic indifference that has got the better of the public awareness and the commensurate action to fight the danger. Neither the authorities concerned, nor the general consumers now seem bothered about the deadly poison they are allowing to harm public health day after day. However, it is not that the informed section of the consumers is not aware of the health hazards they and their children are exposed to. They certainly are. But they simply lack the will and energy to protest the outrage being committed against the people without let-up.
But the formalin used to preserve foodstuff is not the only source of danger to public health. May perishable materials, most of them foodstuffs, are preserved by the traders with chemicals that are more dangerous than formalin. One such instance is the use of pesticides to preserve fried fish, betel leaves and such other items for human consumption. These poisons have the potential to damage the vital organs of the body like kidney and liver in a gradual fashion. But have we ever seen a serious and sustained effort from the government or the consumer rights groups to force the traders to stop the use of these poisons in the foodstuffs? The members of the public, who, are aware of these kinds of contamination in their foods, take it all lying down.
In this connection, one may also recall the occasional drives by mobile courts to check adulteration in food and other kinds of fraudulence practices in the marketplace. But what has happened to those drives?
The dishonest elements in the business and in every tier of the administration and society are too familiar with this attitude of the rights bodies, the government and the public in general to these issues. So, they are never perturbed by the short-lived furores created in the media and among the public over the reports of contamination in foodstuffs or anything that affects public health.
So, from our previous experience, it is not hard to imagine what is going to happen to the recent hullabaloo over the reports of melamine contamination in the milk and milk products of Chinese origin.
But however much we may like to forget the hazards we are exposed to in the foods and drinks we use in our day to lives, those are not going to leave us alone. Moreover, the instances noted in the foregoing are but the tip of the iceberg. And one should not be surprised either at the increasing size of the crowds at the doctors' chambers, the government hospitals and all the public hospitals for getting cure for a plethora of symptoms for diseases unheard in the past. But need it be said that the root of many of these diseases, especially those related to the gastro-intestinal disorders, is the food they consume?
Oddly though, there has never been any visible attempt at identifying and listing all such sources of danger to the public health, let alone combating those in a systematic and sustained fashion.
Such state of our level of awareness and the preparations to face the dangers ourselves and our future generation are exposed to is hardly commendable. But should this state of affairs be allowed to go like this forever? What have our political parties or the so-called civil society to say about it?
Strangely though, they most often keep mum about these issues. But their silence breaks and one sees violent demonstrations in the street as soon as their partisan interests are under threat. Unfortunately, so far there has never any demonstration on the street organised by the political parties in protest against adulteration or contamination in foodstuffs, or spurious medicines or suchlike issues. To them these are but soft issues not meriting serious attention from them. For they think, struggle for power is their sole domain of work and anything less than that should not bother them much. The civil society, too, is so much beholden to the partisan interests that they, too, do not feel like organising protests or launching campaigns to fight the dealers in death in our marketplaces.
But such lack of focus on the parts of our public leaders, the right groups and the authorities concerned about the issues that affect the physical well-being of the people is unprecedented in any other developing and developed nations of the world. The excuse that we are too poor to address these vital issues does not also stand to reason. In fact, it is time we reordered our political priorities. For all the talk of people's democratic right about which the government and dominant political culture of our country are so occupied with loses its meaning when one tumbles to the reality that the physical health of that very people is under grave threat from the foods they eat and the medicines they take. And at the end of the day, should we not be ashamed at such insouciance about our own health and the safety standards to protect it?