THIS is disparaging that Bangladesh authorities are in the dark about the presence of carcinogenic elements in spices of two Indian brands that are sold on the market, especially on e-commerce sites. Food regulators in Hong Kong and Singapore have already sounded warnings against four products of the two brands after they found the presence of ethylene oxide 鈥� which the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers to be a Group 1 carcinogen 鈥� beyond permissible limits. Hong Kong鈥檚 Centre for Food Safety is reported on April 5 to have said that the products are Madras curry powder, Sambhar masala and curry powder produced and marketed by India鈥檚 Mahashian Di Hatti, or MDH, and fish curry masala produced and marketed by India鈥檚 Everest Food Products. The regulators are reported to have instructed the vendors to stop the sales of the products and remove them from shelves. The Singapore Food Agency is reported on April 18 to have issued a statement on its web site, ordering a recall of Everest鈥檚 fish curry masala. While the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution pleads ignorance about the issue, the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority admits to have come to know of it from the media, noting that it is beyond its jurisdiction.
The incident brings to the fore some issues for Bangladesh authorities to set right. While the Standards and Testing Institution says that the Indian spice products are not imported from India to Bangladesh, electronic commerce sites suggest that they sell the spice products, which means that the products are available on the Bangladesh market. How the products enter Bangladesh remains an issue for the government to look into. The Food Safety Authority says that it has come to know of it from the media, but expresses unwillingness of a sort, passing the responsibility for the examination of such products on to the Standards and Testing Institution, which usually examines spices. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India is reported to have already ordered a quality check on the products. But Bangladesh authorities, both the Food Safety Authority and the Standards and Testing Institution, should look into the issue, examine the products and act on the findings accordingly. What still makes it a curious case is that food safety or safe food continues to remain a distant dream in the absence of adequate mechanism for food testing facilities and protocol in Bangladesh and because of the tendency of different agencies to trade blame or to pass the responsibility on one another. Such inadequacy, under-preparedness, bickering between the agencies and blame trade have earlier been noticed in cases of local products that have only allowed consumers to be at perils.
While the government must, therefore, act on the situation at hand, stop the sales of tainted Indian spices and examine them for further action, it must also look into how the Indian products have entered Bangladesh without having been checked. The government must enhance its capacity to check products, foreign or local, for harmful elements before they are allowed to sell on the market.
