LAHORE: Lax attitude of civic bodies and regulators in stopping adulteration in milk is playing havoc with the health of consumers exposing them to cancer, kidney failure, abnormal growths and diseases of joints and high blood pressure.
The painful aspect in this regard is that most consumers have accepted this malpractice like all other aspects of corruption that have become a norm in our society. Milk is a natural food vital particularly for infants in the first few months of life.
Milk is an essential and a good source of nutrients for growing children and the elderly. Its adulteration is injurious to health. Adulteration of milk can cause stunting and low weight in children.
Increase in the price of milk over the years has made it unaffordable for many. The recent hike in its price has brought its price to Rs160/litre for a consumer. But even this litre of milk has 600cc of pure milk and 400cc of water.
The actual price of pure milk shoots over Rs250/litre. Even at this price, it can be tolerated if there is a surety that clean water is used in adulteration.
But milk for adulteration is often drawn from wells near manure heaps, in barnyards, or country privies, which may cause numerous bacterial diseases.
India is the world’s largest milk producer, with 22 percent of global production, followed by the United States of America, China, Pakistan and Brazil. The shelf-life of milk is 4 hours after milking.
It is liable to get spoiled during transportation if time exceeds 4 hours. The milkmen add chemical preservatives such as penicillin, strepto-penicillin, formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, sodium bi-carbonate, urea, hair removing chemicals etc to prolong its shelf life.
The other way to preserve the shelf life of milk is either to pack it in special packing after ultra heat treatment that increases the shelf life up to three months; or to pasteurise it as is done in most of the developed and developing countries that prolongs the shelf life to 48 hours.
These processes of preservation are limited to less than 10 percent of all milk supplied to the consumers.
Addition of these adulterants/preservatives raises the proportion of health hazards for end consumers; particularly infants and elderly. Formaldehyde is the substance most commonly used for preserving milk and is rarely used for any other food.
Its use is inexcusable and especially objectionable in milk served to infants and invalids. In Lahore, regulators even found Aflatoxin M1 in powdered milk samples and also some of the loose milk samples.
Medical experts point out that abnormal growth, nervous disorders in babies, diseases of joints, kidneys and high blood pressure stem from adulterated milk. Melamine, in particular in combination with cyanuric acid, causes deposition and precipitation of birefringent (double refraction) crystals thereby causing renal failure.
In cases where antibiotics or formalin are used to preserve milk it would not be possible to break the milk into curd by adding lemon juice or a spoon of curd.
They also point out that a more dangerous trend developed in recent years among the dairy farmers is to inject growth hormone (rBGH) to dairy cows or buffaloes to increase milk production.
Doctors believe traces of this hormone are found in the milk consumed by human beings. Growth hormone adulterated milk induces premature growth stimulation in infants, gynecomastia (excessive development of the breasts in males) in young children and breast cancer in women.
This unethical practice should be curbed through stern administrative action.