he Problem of Substandard, Adulterated -Unwholesome Food and Medicine”

The Problem of Substandard, Adulterated -Unwholesome Food and Medicine”. http://risingkashmir.com/the-problem-of-substandard-adulterated-food-and-medicine-0be418ed-2952-4917-9d13-fa664fb08e10 Frequent reports in media lines don't catch the attention of concerned citizens. As citizens, It is our DUTY that we become informed and demand accountability to check food adulteration and the quality of Medicine available to consumers. says. Dr fiaz fazili ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did you eat breakfast today? Milk, fresh fruits, vegetables, tea, coffee, Kashmiri roti , even honey .Find out why it's important.? You can’t eat healthy in our cities.. An intriguing question always baffles me ,All that we naturally reach for as healthy foods can be potentially disease breeders. Access to pure, nutritious food, free from any type of adulteration is the genuine expectation of every citizen. Despite improvement in production, processing and packaging, more adulterated food and spurious Medicine is entering our market. I haven’t yet met someone in the valley who can say that he/she is not a victim of rampant food or Medicine adulteration. Everyone complains, but no one is willing to have checks and balances. Somehow, we have accepted it as an inevitable reality, however damaging it may be for our health, that we have no option but to live with. The issue is identified as a problem only when the level exceeds certain tolerance limits, or hyped in the media as sudden random checks by Food safety or drug controllers discover unhealthy practices,methodology,storage and toxic material used in preparations or serving . Adulteration (duplicates) thrives both in cities as well as in rural outskirts, branded as well as non-branded items both are targeted. In my childhood, the biggest grouse of concerned mothers was the adulteration of milk with water by the local milkman. Today, watered milk would be almost noble. Now social media is frequently with posts of milk being faked with urea, detergents, caustic soda, white paint, and oil. Allah knows best what more. A serious health hazard, toxic synthetic milk causes terrible ailments, including cancer. The milk may be full of hormones - mostly oxytocin, a banned drug given to cattle to increase lactation which once seeps into human body may lead to hormone imbalance and miscarriage, newborn eye problems , heart and neurological complications .What will you feed your child then, for strong bones and healthy growth? Fresh fruit or green veggies, and lots of calcium-rich spinach? Sorry, dear, but most of our “fresh” fruits and vegetables are also flushed with chemicals or pesticides if not washed properly . People say many chemicals, gases are injected generously into most gourds, including pumpkins, cucumbers, spinach, karelas, watermelons, bananas and mangoes to make them brighter, plumper, bigger and more attractive to consumers but dangerous for health. Fruits and veggies also contain several times the permitted levels of pesticides, necessary for a good crop,but pesticides can cause serious health problems, such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and other effects that might occur over a long period of time. However, these effects depend on how toxic the pesticide is and how much of it is consumed. Can we go for fish and meat ?Well, how safe are fish — since they are routinely bred in water, thank God the water of river Jhelum,Wulsar and Dal lake has not been declared contaminated yet despite getting polluted with all sorts of wastes . And meat is rich in hormones, antibiotics and drugs that the animal(chicken) was fed to fatten it for slaughter. In fact, we ingest much more antibiotics and hormones from meats and poultry than we could ever do from honey.I believe the epidemic of PCOS in young girls is because of contaminated chicken with hormones,but need a detailed research project -May be Dr Ashraf the noted endocrinologist could throw more light on this subject . Maybe we could drink lots of water to flush out these toxins? You could,with fingers crossed. A report showed many mineral waters TDS levels were not upto standard had levels exceeding the Maximum Tolerance Limits (MTL).Although there are concerns about bottled mineral waters (due to plasticizers and endocrine disruptors), many are the health effects of natural mineral waters and several studies explored their properties and their role in different physiological and pathological conditions. Adding secretly colouring agents to” wazzawaan” by our" cooks(wazzas)" is no surprise to a Kashmiri consumer,butmany non-permissible and banned colors unfortunately are used to decorate sweets and other edible items causing serious health hazards like cancer in the long run. Adding any other powder (like sawdust) totea/coffee/tamarind/coriander/chilli powder, mixing low quality or other cheaper varieties of grains/oils to foodgrains/edible oils and so on are some of the adulteration methods usually objected to by the consumer. Food adulteration has become rampant—same way if I Continue to enumerate the list ,I am sure people will lose appetite ,intention here is simply to raise awareness of an unfortunate reality which may not be happening in our valley in big magnitude but foods and beverages coming from outside the state may contain any of these harmful substances. The WHO estimated in 2017 that one-tenth of medicines sold in low- and middle-income countries were thought to be substandard or falsified. Independent modeling studies based on those numbers indicate that this could result in as many as 285,000 children dying every year from malaria or pneumonia. The W.H.O. has not released more recent numbers, and there is limited data on exactly how much of this comes from India.Though there are stringent laws to check this menace, yet the consumers are required to playpro-active role in protecting themselves and to help in reporting about various forms of fake/counterfeit drugs and other unwholesome regulated products available in market. These include drugs with no active ingredient(s) or drugs containing only lactose or even chalk in tablets or olive oil in capsules.Others are drugs with insufficient active ingredients such as xxxx tablets containing 50 mg of the active ingredient instead of200mg,others are drugs with active ingredient(s) that are different from whatis stated on the package such as Paracetamol tablets packaged and labeled asxxxxx(yyyyy and zzzzz combination).There are also cloned drugs with the same quantity of active ingredients as the original drug. Cloning is hiding behind a fast moving registered product to rake up profits without the associated liabilities and it is solely driven by financial motives. What these fraudsters fail to understand is that minimal effective blood concentration, which determines the efficacy of the drug, is not only dependent on the quantity of active ingredient, but also on the quality, excipients, and formulation techniques. The big question,however, is: who takes responsibility when there are adverse effects of cloned drugs? Unfortunately, the Doctor is the target .Fast moving cosmetics, food and drinks are also massively cloned.Others are drugs without the full name and address of the manufacturer, expired drugs or drugs without expiry dates, toxic herbal preparations mixed with orthodox medicine, and contaminated infusions and injectables. Other forms of substandard/unwholesome products include syringes with poor calibrations or blunt to semi-blunt tips, contaminated and/or pyrogenic syringes, needles, surgical blades, blood bags and infusion sets, non-sterile gloves, sutures and condoms, expired products and those products without expiry dates or best before dates, or relabelled with the intention of extending their shelf life, and contaminated chemicals. Still others include food and drinks contaminated with bacteria, heavy metals, trace metals, radioactive materials,and banned chemicals, or those containing unapproved sweeteners, colours,flavours and other additives, or others with poor quality or internationally acceptable packaging. It is difficult to ascertain a precise effect of a spurious drug on the health of a person for the following reasons: a) It is not known at the time of consumption of medicine that it is a spurious drug. Therefore, if the drug is not effective a patient usually thinks that the diagnosis is wrong and either he consults another physician or ends up having a series of diagnostic tests including blood,x-rays, ultrasound,Ctscan, MRI etc,how effective is quality assurance and vigilance ?. resulting in an increased medical expenses, mental agony and absence from work or studies.b.) If there are certain toxic effects of the medicine then it is usually assigned to anallergic reaction of the medicine and the physician might change the medicine.The toxic medicine is then completely forgotten and is not pursued anyfuther.c). If the medicine is fatal then usually the death is assigned to the disease or the negligence of a doctor or the hospital Even when spurious drugs do not endanger life they can leave the patient seriously ill and those with inadequate potency can induce drug resistant bacteria i.e, they will not respond even when right medicine in right dosage is given. All people deserve safe food, and Medicines. We toil day and night for what? For that two morsel of wholesome nutritive food and safeHealth. And if at the end of the day we are not sure of what we eat as food andMedicine, then what are we toiling for? What can be done to check? The only way to protect yourself and your child from this social evil and health hazard is by getting proper safety regulations for food,Medicine and beverages in place and raising public awareness. (Dr Fiaz Fazili isCertified Healthcare Quality professional on healthcare Quality improvement and safety standards )