Editorial
Mixing melamine with baby food
Take guard against the lethal hazard
The import and marketing of the toxic milk powder which reportedly contains melamine, a poisonous substance, has added to the worries of general consumers. The Chinese experience with contaminated baby food is a wake-up call for us.
What is surprising is that no screening mechanism could be installed by the BSTI to find out whether all the imported milk powder is fit for human consumption. If allowing adulteration of foods, in a milder and less pernicious form, is a gross neglect of duty, the failure to detect melamine in milk to be ingested by infants and babies must have been a criminal offence. It is not known how such milk powder could be imported and marketed with impunity. Are we not required to be particular about the quality and purity of the food products we export to the developed world? Can't we expect that the rules would be similarly applicable when we are importing foodstuffs from abroad?
The government has decided to cancel the licence of the two companies which marketed such toxic milk powder. Mobile courts have also been set up in some places to prevent sale of such products. In Chittagong and Sylhet some shop owners were penalised. Obviously, the law enforcers have to take a tough stand on the issue. Seizure of milk powder from shops and clamping of a nominal fine do not, however, appear to be enough to deal with those committing offences amounting to infanticide. Those who mix poisonous substance with baby food are as culpable as those who import and sell it; yet, the authorities whose job it is to screen it out are to blame equally, if not more. For it is true that lax monitoring by the agencies concerned is exposing our people to all sorts of hazards.
The government ought to get a move on to assess the magnitude of the presence of toxic milk, ban its sale and put forward suggestions to fend off such hazardous product in future. Meanwhile, the media should be used to make the people aware of the risks involved in consuming toxic milk powder. Simultaneously, the milk importers' association should take guard against procurement of hazardous milk by any of its constituents.
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