POWDERED MILK CONTAMINATION Govt sits idle on evidence

It was in January 2018 the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority announced that it had detected lead residues 10 to 16 times the permissible limit in powdered milk of six imported brands.

Confident about the findings of the tests, conducted at laboratories of the country’s top two relevant institutions – Institute of Public Health and Atomic Energy Centre – the food safety authority even ordered the customs authorities to stop releasing the milk consignments without conducting lead contamination test on them.

The national food regulatory authority, however, never ordered recall of the contaminated products or revealed the name of the accused brands. It rather sat with the powdered milk importers to ‘find solutions to the problem’.

Then, in a gap of less than two weeks, the authority decided to conduct retest abroad on samples of the powdered milk of the six companies but never talked about the matter again, always showing indifference to journalists’ inquiries in this regard.

On July 24, New Age met  regulatory authority member Mahbub Kabir, who was looking into the matter, to see if there was any updates on the matter.

‘This is not a good time to talk about it,’ said Mahbub, referring to the growing public outrage against contamination of pasteurised milk.

As the reporter insisted on proceeding ahead with the public health issue, Mahbub curtly said that the tests conducted abroad did not find lead residue in the samples.

He, however, declined to share any data about the retest this time as he did while breaking the lead contamination news first time in January 2018.

‘We will run a fresh round of tests on powdered milk soon,’ Mahbub rather said.

On July 29, 2019, the High Court ordered all 14 pasteurised milk producing companies in the country to stop for five weeks the production, distribution and sale of their products, after laboratory tests found them contaminated with lead.

The order was later stayed by the Appellate Division following appeals although consumers hailed the High Court ban.

Numerous studies over the years revealed that pasteurised milk of various brands was contaminated with bacteria, antibiotics.

On July 30, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, however, wondered if powdered milk importers were pulling strings from behind to hurt the local dairy industry to their own benefit.

She also said that imported milk should also be tested.

Bangladesh imports powdered milk as its annual production of 94 lakh tonnes of cow milk is far short of fulfilling the demand of 1.50 crore tonnes, according to the Bangladesh Dairy Farmers’ Association.

Almost 50 per cent of the powdered milk imported is sourced from European countries, 20 per cent from Australia and New Zealand and the rest from Russia, Ukraine and China, according to the association.

‘Powdered milk poses even greater health risks [than pasteurised milk],’ said association president Mohammad Imran Hossain.

He said that Bangladesh imported world’s worst quality powdered milk which contained high level of vegetable fat.

For instance, he pointed out, European countries extract milk fat from cow milk for their own consumption in the form of butter and cheese and other products.

Then the countries dry up the remaining liquid and add vegetable fat to it for selling as powdered milk to countries like Bangladesh, he went on.

He further said that Bangladesh allowed many times more radioactive powdered milk to be imported from Russia and Ukraine compared to the European Union and other developed countries.

The other aspect of concern is, he said, having no government policy on controlling import of powdered milk about to be expired.

In European countries powdered milk having less than three years of expiry are not allowed, he said.

On the other hand, Bangladesh lets in powdered milk that is going to expire even in a week or less, he went on.

The shelf life of powdered milk is directly related to its cost, with the product having more than three years of shelf life might cost up to

$7,000 a tonne while that having six months of shelf life costs about $1,500, said Imran.

Against this backdrop, Imran said, the association had long been calling on the government for better regulation of importing of powdered milk.

Some 20 companies import powdered milk in Bangladesh mainly in bulk.

The tests the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution conducts on imported powdered milk are very few, which mainly determine its water, fat and protein contents. 

The BSTI also tests presence of pathogenic organisms and melamine residues in the product.

The standard determination agency, however, does not examine if residues of heavy metals like lead and cadmium or antibiotics are present in the food item.

‘These tests [carried out by the BSTI] are simply not enough,’ said Imran.

Internationally, powdered milk is also strictly tested for presence of heavy metals like lead, cadmium and iron, and antibiotics.

The European Commission has even made it mandatory for the exporters to disclose the quality of water used in processing powder milk.

Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution deputy director Md Nurul Islam, who is responsible for looking into standards in powdered milk, said that they were working on increasing their capacity to ensure that people get best quality milk.

International studies linked consumption of lead through milk to interrupted brain development among children.

On the other hand, consumption of cadmium causes renal problems, anaemia, reproductive failure and other complications.

The most nutritious food on earth, milk, is especially fed to children and patients to have good growth and better ability to fight diseases.

Physicians have said that contaminated milk is a public health threat. 

In 2008, the government asked people not to buy milk powder of eight overseas brands for being tainted with melamine.

The brands were from China, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand.

The government has, however, never banned the sale of those products or ordered a recall of the contaminated milk powder or has taken action against the companies involved in importing the contaminated powdered milk.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net