ANTIBIOTICS, BACTERIA, DETERGENT IN PASTEURISED MILK HC orders retest in 4 labs as BSTI lacks capacity

The High Court on Sunday directed the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution to arrange a fresh test on 14 brands of pasteurised milk at four government laboratories in seven days to detect whether the packaged milk contained harmful substances like bacteria including coliform and staphylococci, formalin, antibiotics as well as detergent and acidity.

The bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir also directed the institution to submit four reports of the test to the court in the next hearing on July 23.   

The bench issued the directives after the BSTI in a hearing submitted that it had no parameter to detect presence of harmful antibiotics, bacteria and detergent in pasteurised milk as Dhaka University’s Biomedical Research Centre and its pharmacy faculty found after conducting a test and a retest on the same brands of pasteurised milk.

The HC bench also directed the national standards testing agency to place to the court by July 23 the action plan it would have to undertake to detect antibiotics and detergent in pasteurized milk at its laboratories.

The court directed the BSTI to collect samples of pasteurised milk in aid and presence of technicians of the four laboratories namely icddr,b, Institute of Public Health, Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute in Savar.

The court ordered the fresh test on all the pasteurised milk brands as the study report of DU’s Biomedical Research Centre and its pharmacy faculty, released on June 25, found presence of ‘detergent and antibiotics’ in pasteurised milk.

The HC also banned artificial sweetener ‘cyclamate’ in fruit drinks.

The same DU study also found ghee or clarified butter, chilli and turmeric powder, palm, mustard and soya bean oils of popular brands to be of low standard.

While the DU study, carried out by the faculty of pharmacy under the leadership of Professor ABM Faroque, drew flak from the BSTI, the government  as well as the dairy milk production companies concerned, the same study team collected new samples of the same pasteurised milk brands and found the same harmful bacteria, antibiotics and detergent in the samples after the retest.       

The DU study team also revealed that the BSTI had no parameter to detect total bacterial count, coliform count, staphylococci count, formalin, antibiotics as well as detergent and acidity in foods.

Earlier, the BSTI had raised objection to another study that was conducted by the Institute of Public Health which found bacteria and lead in 96 raw cow milk samples, 31 samples of cow milk in poly bags, 30 curd samples in plastic containers and 30 fodder samples collected from the capital, Narayanganj, Gazipur, Savar, Ashulia and Keraniganj, according to the IPH test report submitted to the bench by IPH laboratory chief Shahnila Ferdousi on May 21.

Shahnila found salmonella, escherichia coli, aflatoxin and residues of deadly pesticides like endosulfan as well as chromium and lead in 190 samples of cow milk, curd and fodder that were tested between August and December 2018.

Though the BSTI had no parameter to detect harmful germs like bacteria and detergent in milk and food products, it claimed in several hearings in the HC that no harmful substances were found in raw or pasteurised milk.

Two rules over milk have been pending with two HC benches.     

The bench led by Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed was hearing a previous rule issued by another bench on May 21, 2018 that had directed the government and the BSTI to explain why their failure and inaction to monitor and ensure safety standards of pasteurised milk would not be declared as ‘illegal’.

The respondents were also asked to explain why they would not be directed to monitor and ensure safety standards of pasteurised milk on sale in the market.

The court had issued the rule after hearing Supreme Court lawyer Tanvir Ahmed’s writ petition that had pointed out that the icddr, b in its lab tests found pasteurised milk in the market contaminated.

Later on  February 11, the bench led Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder following the publication of Prof Shahnila’s study on dairy milk in newspapers issued a suo moto rule directing the BSTI and the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority to submit the list of companies that marketed contaminated cow milk, curd and fodder.

The Anti-Corruption Commission was asked to take action against the companies that marketed adulterated milk and cattle feed.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net