the most precious of possessions to humans
IT is no overstatement to say that food adulteration activities
red have reached an alarming level in Bangladesh, warranting immediate strongest of actions against the same. Media reports have been highlighting how formalin is being used in fishes and milk which, on entering human bodies, can produce some lethal effects such as cancer and liver diseases. Burnt mobil in cooking oil, pesticides with toxic effects sprayed liberally on fruits and vegetables, colouring agents in foods which are really dyes used in textile industries are some other cases of food adulteration.
These can severely undermine human health. Furthermore, urea is being used in muri (puffed rice) for frying to make the same look shinier; chillie and turmeric powders are adulterated with brick dust; rotten eggs and meats in restaurants are catered to; fishes bred in sewer lagoons with the prospects of such fishes acquiring different lethal bacteria from human excrement are marketed; calcium carbide is used for artificial fruit ripening when eating such fruits can produce a host of diseases on humans. The list can be made a far longer one. But that is not necessary. The above should be enough to give one an idea of what sorts of poisons are being catered in abundance in the daily foods of millions and millions of Bangladeshis and their paying an awful price in the form of various sicknesses as a result.
Medicines are meant to save the most precious of possessions to humans, their lives. But same are also noted to be spurious in many cases in Bangladesh. Media reports as well as the actions of law enforcement bodies many times showed up the unabated activities of producers of spurious medicines and related products. The so-called antibiotic capsules were found and seized that contained nothing of the stated antibiotic powders in the coatings but things like talcum powder and flour. No wonder that a large number of people have been complaining about not getting cured after getting treated with such fake medicines. Others are not even that lucky. They die from taking sub-standard or completely fake medical products such as from using bogus saline. Newspaper reports appeared time and again about persons who died from pushing such saline unknowingly in their bodies. Imported medicines, claiming to be vitamins or food supplements, are getting freely imported and marketed although the reputation of their producers are dubious; the supplements on testing are very likely to be found as fake or sub-standard ones.
