Nowadays food adulteration is a serious problem in the country. It is done in various ways to gain profit quickly. Sometimes foods are given artificial colors to make them bright and attractive to the people. Even poisonous chemicals are used for this purpose. It is a serious threat to public health. It may cause fatal diseases such as kidney failure, cancer, and diarrhea and so on. Sometimes the adverse effect of adulteration is quick and sometimes slow. Adulteration is done in such a way that it cannot be understood easily. It should be stopped immediately. This paper is intended to focus on how law will become effective against adulteration, how people will be motivated against food adulteration. Recently some effective steps have been taken by Mobile Courts of the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) and consumer awareness which is able to reduce it to an extent. It is a national problem as it is directly related with human life of the whole country. So people should unitedly stand against for the prevention of food adulteration.
Food is a significant reason for the considerable number of diseases in the entire world. Bangladesh, a third world developing country of South Asia, is not an exception in this case. Consumption of unsafe food is a serious threat to public health in Bangladesh for last couple of decades. A survey conducted by the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, Dhaka University (DU), in early 2005 had revealed that inadequate diets and intake of adulterated foods are responsible for the malnutrition of 60 per cent of the people of Bangladesh.1 The Institute of Public Health (IPH) in Dhaka and the World Health Organization (WHO) in their joint study of 2005 on food adulteration tested 52 street vendors and found that, all of the vendors’ food samples were contaminated with different types of disease breeding microorganisms. 2 Especially children are more vulnerable than adults as unsafe food is a major cause of child mortality. Universally it is accepted that, unsafe food is an important factor of malnutrition, which causes various types of serious illnesses including diarrhoea along with other permanent consequences for the human body. In a study recognized by the GOB portrayed * Associate Professor, Department of Law and Justice, Bangladesh University of Business and Technology (BUBT) Dhaka. email: sarfaraj_shovon@yahoo.com 1 A report of World Health Organization with the collaboration of University of Dhaka, this report is available on WHO (Food Safety and Security) website, date: 23.2.2005 2 Rahman, Shah Mahfuzur, Hoque, Md Asirul, and Amin, Md Ruhul Talukder, Food Security in Bangladesh: Utilization, Nutrition and Food Adulteration (paper presented at the National Workshop on Food Security, Dhaka, (2005), pp. 45.
the depressing picture of child mortality. Pointing the forefinger to the malnutrition as a significant cause of child mortality, this report mentioned that in every 19 children 1 child die before they complete five years. Given the numerous deaths and enormous sufferings of people caused by adulterated foods in Bangladesh, the regulators should not be allowed to avoid their responsibility to protect the people from such serious harm caused by the adulterated foodstuffs available to consumers. This is because the contribution of legal and regulatory failures in combating these human sufferings must be given due emphasis in any quest for a durable remedy against this evil.3
This study is being conducted to study the concept of food adulteration, government role and its effects on human lives. Further, what measures have been taken by the legislature and their legislations to prevent this increasing menace of adulteration? The objectives of this paper are as follows: a) to sort out challenges and prospects of this issue. b) the main agenda of the state government as well as the issue of food adulteration and of the plan to be taken in this regard. c) to protect the public from poisonous and harmful foods. d) to protect the interests of the consumers by eliminating fraudulent practices. e) food adulteration can be easily reduced by strict government laws. f) during Ramadan, run it just would not be anti-adulteration aristocracy, the aristocracy of the need to maintain the government’s anti-adulteration. g) relentless enforcement of existing laws with the execution of highest penalty possible.
“Adulterate” implies an element of deceit. According to the definition of Chamber’s Dictionary it means “to debase, falsify by mixing with something inferior or spurious.” 4 Adulterant means any material which is or could be employed for making food unsafe or sub-standard or mis-branded or containing extraneous matter. Hence, the term “food adulteration “can be simply defined- as an act of intentional debasing the quality of food offered for sale either by the admixture or substitution of inferior substances or by the removal of some valuable ingredient. It also can be defined as the addition or mixing of interior harmful, substandard, useless or unnecessary substances to foods. Adulterated foods spoil the nature and quality of food items and are considered food adulteration. A substance added to a food-item to reduce its quality in order to increase its quantity is called as an adulterant the addition of adulterants is called adulteration. Any food item may be considered as adulterated if its nature and quality are not up to the standard. The meaning of adulteration varies from country to country on the basis of municipal law. If a food exceeds tolerances and regulatory limits of the country, it will be considered adulterated. It is to be noted that the basic contention of the term food adulteration is fully relevant and inter-related with the terms/factors like food safety and food security.
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