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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Callous habits catch up with noodles and more -GS Mudur

Callous habits catch up with noodles and more -GS Mudur

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published Published on Jun 4, 2015   modified Modified on Jun 4, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Biochemist Thuppil Venkatesh says he is not surprised by claims of food safety regulators in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi that they have detected lead, a potential toxin to humans, in Maggi noodles.

For over a decade, Venkatesh, professor emeritus at St John's Medical College, Bangalore, has been trying to warn the country about what he says are dangerous levels of lead in the environment that may slip into food.

He has cited research studies by health and toxicology experts from across the country that have documented lead in a variety of processed and raw food products such as chocolates, milk, vegetables, fish and water.

Scientists say the primary sources of environmental lead are lead paints, backyard recycling of lead batteries and water plumbing materials, among others. Rituals such as immersing painted idols in rivers can put lead in the water, which can infiltrate the food chain, a scientist pointed out.

"I think we've just seen the tip of an iceberg," said Venkatesh, the national chair of the Indian Society for Lead Awareness and Research (InSLAR), a non-government body campaigning against lead poisoning.

Documents released by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) this week suggest that the lead found in noodles may only be one example of a mass of unfavourable results the food regulator has compiled from different states over the past three years.

Food safety inspectors across the country tested 72,200 samples of food items during 2013-14, among which 13,571 were labelled as "non-conforming" to the standards, according to the FSSAI documents.

Food regulators launched prosecution in 10,235 cases, and achieved convictions or penalties in 3,845 cases, the FSSAI said, but did not specify what food samples were tested or why they failed the tests.

The proportion of food samples not conforming to standards among the tens of thousands of samples tested each year increased from about 12 per cent during fiscal 2011-12 to 14 per cent during 2012-13 to 18 per cent during 2013-14.

"It is disturbing - details of which food products failed tests are not immediately available to the public," Venkatesh told The Telegraph. "Such information could be relevant to public health. We'd like to know how many failed in lead tests."

A senior official in the FSSAI asserted that the organisation periodically issues alerts for the public through its website, citing examples over the past month of a ban on the manufacture and sale of energy drinks containing ginseng and caffeine and the recall of an ice-cream.

But the official said he could not immediately provide information about specific contaminants in food samples found not conforming to standards. "The testing is mainly done by state authorities - they will have detailed data," the official told this newspaper.

The FSSAI had last month ordered food regulators in all states to pick up samples of Maggi noodles after Uttar Pradesh food inspectors detected high levels of lead and the taste-enhancer monosodium glutamate in a sample of the noodles.

Since then, the Delhi government also has reported lead in the brand of noodles.

"The noodles were among hundreds of samples of food tested each year," Hemant Rao, the principal secretary in the Uttar Pradesh food safety and drug administration department, said.

Rao said he could not immediately say how many other food products had also been found contaminated with lead.

But scientists who have been tracking lead in the environment say they won't be surprised if other products too were found to contain lead.

"It is sad - this country has no mandatory regulations on limiting lead in paints," said Giridhar Gyani, the director-general of the Association of Health Care Providers of India and chief adviser to INCLAR. Gyani was earlier the head of the Quality Council of India, an agency that certifies testing laboratories and had once campaigned for regulations to reduce lead in paints.

With only voluntary standards at present, lead paints remain a key source of environmental lead. "The thousands of idols immersed in rivers and lakes each year also put lead in the water which can get back into the human food chain," Gyani said.

A decade ago, scientists at the environmental and health studies sections at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, had documented the presence of lead, among other heavy metals, in chocolates and candies sold in the city.

They calculated that a child who eats 20 grams of chocolate daily would on average ingest about 270 micrograms lead in a week. "Lead accumulates in the body, this is a figure much higher than permissible levels in blood," Venkatesh said.

Other research groups have over the past decade independently detected lead in buffalo milk in Chennai and Hyderabad, vegetables in Uttar Pradesh and Bengal, paddy grown in Odisha and several species of fish in the Cauvery river.

In several cases, the levels exceeded the permissible limits.

Ingested lead may accumulate in the brain, liver, kidneys and the bones, among other tissues. Toxicology experts say young children are particularly vulnerable and lead poisoning can lead to subtle intellectual deterioration in children. In adults, lead can increase the risk of high blood pressure, while pregnant women exposed to high levels of lead face the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth.

The Telegraph, 4 June, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150604/jsp/frontpage/story_23881.jsp#.VW_E4kZr9v0


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