Toxic milk powder
As a result of a report on a number of brands of powdered milk tendered by a Dhaka University laboratory, the government has asked the public to avoid those brands and to use liquid local cow's milk. However, some other laboratories did not find their samples of the various brands to be tainted with melamine. Some 50,000 children in China are reported to have fallen sick, with many deaths, as a result of consuming melamine-laced powdered milk. To date, not a single documented case of such poisoning has been reported in Bangladesh. It would appear that further testing is called for in order to establish fully whether brands which we have trusted and used for decades could be implicated in such a criminal practice as adulteration.
In the meantime, after glancing at The Daily Star's front-page photograph of cow's milk being brought to market, I wonder whether using milk transported in such unhygienic manner is any safer.
There has also been a report of condensed filled milk in Thailand being found to contain melamine. Filled milk means milk where the dairy fat is substituted by palm oil, and all the Bangladesh brands of condensed milk in tins are prepared with palm oil in place of dairy fat. It would be prudent for the government to test all the locally-produced brands of condensed milk for melamine, and to insist that manufacturers label these products to show that they contain palm oil, known to be hazardous for cardio-vascular patients, in order for consumers to decide whether to use these products.
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