WELL DONE VIETNAM!-NEW SAFETY MEASURES FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION

Who does not know the human sufferings in Vietnam during the much hated War involving the United States and the Communists which ended eventually after the fleeing of Americans and their cohorts from Saigon in 1975. It is remarkable that this tiny country could recover from the trauma associated with the war and be counted as an economic power house on its own in such a short time. That the country had to start from the scratch to build a viable nation respected by the international community has not deterred it from taking up programs that could uplift the economic well being of its war battered people. It is amazing that Vietnam has one of the fastest growing economies in the world to day and it is the topmost exporter of Cashew nuts and Pepper while its rice exports are next only to the world leader Thailand. Recent news that Vietnam has put in place a rigorous food safety regime to protect its people can bode well for their future, domestically as well as internationally. Here is a take on this emerging development in Vietnam.  

"Under a newly-issued circular from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development which will take effect from September 3, all products and by-products from animals including heads, tails, legs, skin, grease and edible innards must be sold within eight hours at room temperature. Meat products stored from 0-5 Celsius degrees can be sold within 72 hours while by-products in the same conditions have 24 hours to be sold. The measures include a requirement for legal slaughter checking and quarantine stamps on products. A ban on the use of preservatives on raw products and by-products was also included. Butchers and all others involved in slaughtering and transport are required to have a certificate issued by a medical unit from district levels. Last month, there were 16 food poisoning cases nationwide affecting 531 people. Two deaths were reported. In total, some 2,400 people suffered food poisoning, including 16 deaths, in the first seven months of the year".

The new food regulation concerning the safety of products and by-products of meat industry speaks well of the intention of the country not to compromise on the health of its citizens. Contrast this with the situation obtaining in India where the meat industry, catering to domestic consumers, is literally in tatters with no serious monitoring or regulation of its activities. It is common to see carcasses hanging openly on road side vending kiosks, exposed totally to the dust and grime raised by the fast plying automobiles, three wheeler and two wheeler vehicles spewing toxic fumes copiously. Low temperature storage is rarely resorted to and the meat cuts offered must be one of the most contaminated foods in the world. Most of the thousands of slaughter houses run in civic areas are filthy and nauseating and how the consumers are putting up with such conditions is a mystery. Probably the prevalent practice of over cooking the meat once brought home, is thought to be a factor that is responsible for very few safety related episodes in India. Vietnam with less than 100 million population and a per capita income of hardly $ 3500 (PPP) has done exceedingly well in the area of food safety measured by any yardstick, leaving behind its giant fellow Asian countries like China and India.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

WAR AGAINST PATHOGENS-HUMAN BEINGS BEING OUTSMARTED?

The subject of antibiotic resistance among the disease causing pathogens is the focus of current concern and it is assuming alarming proportion with human beings running out all options to fight this war with bugs. The NIH of USA has recently revealed how difficult it was to trace and identify new resistant strains of Klebsiella which caused a few deaths last year among those being treated in ICUs of some of the best hospitals in that country. The reasons for this dangerous situation are not far to seek. Indiscriminate prescription of front line broad spectrum for treating even a minor cold by small time physicians, probably because of inability to diagnose the diseases properly gave the opportunity to the bugs to develop resistance over a period of time. To compound this situation massive consumption of meat and products derived from animals posed a dangerous situation with frequent food poisoning being encountered with lethal consequences and to meet such contingencies the live stock industry started treating the animals with the very same antibiotics used to treat humans. To day more than 80% of antibiotics produced in the US go to meat industry and one can easily imagine the consequences of such malpractices on the disease front in humans. The above concern is reflected in a report recently published.

"Antibiotics once seemed like a miracle weapon in our fight against microbes that have plagued mankind for millenniums, killing untold numbers of people with wounds and serious infections. But we're in danger of losing that weapon. Over the years, bacteria have grown increasingly resistant to these drugs. We've squandered an invaluable resource that we've overused — some might say abused. The drug industry is spending too little to develop alternatives. Only a concerted effort by government, private industry and the public can avert a crisis. The antibiotic era started less than a century ago with the discovery of the antibacterial drug sulfa. After World War II, the emergence of penicillin allowed doctors to cure a vast range of potentially crippling, if not fatal, infections of the urinary tract, the respiratory system and other parts of the body. These antibiotics did not target a specific infection site but unleashed a lethal attack on the body's trillions of bacteria. Of course, some bacteria survived. These Darwinian "fittest bugs" not only persisted but had the uncanny ability to pass on their genes, which allowed them and other bacteria to survive the next antibiotic assault. The battle was on: humans versus the bugs. Each side started with substantial advantages. The bugs enjoyed staggering numbers, boosting genetic variability that fuels selection of increasingly resistant bugs. Medical science responded with novel antibiotics to kill the hardiest of these bugs. Who will win this epic struggle between genetic diversity and human ingenuity? After nearly a century, the bugs are emerging with the upper hand. And we bear the blame".


Indians are familiar with a strain of  Klebsiella pneuminiae, containing metallo-beta-lactamase-1 enzyme, known by the acronym NDM-1, which was traced to a hospital in New Delhi with resistance to almost all antibiotics and such super bugs are emerging more frequently in other parts of the world also with sickening regularity. One of the imponderable factors that bother health authorities in some of the advanced countries is why these super bugs are more lethal there and why they are not causing any epidemic in countries like India. A clue for this contradiction comes from the reports of health scientists that over obsession with cleanliness, over use of sanitizing chemicals and over processing of most of the foods marketed make the people more vulnerable to even minor infections due to their progressively lowered immune system. Biotechnology which provided the DNA sequencing method to mankind has to be thanked for evolving many techniques for identifying hard to detect microorganisms in extremely small concentrations and food industry is also benefited immensely by the DNA technologies for tracing contamination in food chains for prompt action to counteract against their lethal consequences. The massive on-going efforts under a global program to map out the genomes of almost all microorganisms with pathogenic consequences are expected to add to the existing armor to fight against dangerous infections more reliably and faster than hitherto possible.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

"WAR" ON CHILDHOOD OBESITY IN AMERICA-THE WINNER IS -----!

Lot has been said and written about the villainous role played by the processed food industry in raising a nation of children with distorted body shape due to over consumption of fat and calories served by the former. No matter what any body says the industry seems to be least bothered because of its "money power" that has kept national governments under the thump! Every time a proposal is mooted to impose stringent regulatory control over the industry, the strategy has been to coddle up to the government promising voluntary action to curb the manufacture of patently unhealthy but organoleptically mouth watering foods, only to break the same with neither remorse nor fear of retribution. Here is the latest instance of the destructive way the industry deals with issues that concern the health and lives of citizens in that "great" country, all call as the United States of America!

In the political arena, one side is winning the war on child obesity. The side with the fattest wallets. After aggressive lobbying, Congress declared pizza a vegetable to protect it from a nutritional overhaul of the school lunch program this year. The White House kept silent last year as Congress killed a plan by four federal agencies to reduce sugar, salt and fat in food marketed to children. And during the past two years, each of the 24 states and five cities that considered soda taxes  to discourage consumption of sugary drinks has seen the efforts dropped or defeated. At every level of government, the food and beverage industries won fight after fight during the last decade. They have never lost a significant political battle in the United States despite mounting scientific evidence of the role of unhealthy food and children's marketing in obesity. Lobbying records analyzed by Reuters reveal that the industries more than doubled their spending in Washington during the past three years. In the process, they largely dominated policy making -- pledging voluntary action while defeating government proposals aimed at changing the nation's diet, dozens of interviews show. In contrast, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, widely regarded as the lead lobbying force for healthier food, spent about $70,000 lobbying last year -- roughly what those opposing the stricter guidelines spent every 13 hours, the Reuters analysis showed.


While the above case pertains to USA, the experience is not different in other countries where the food industry has a free run with no modicum of respect for the regulatory agencies whose activities are tailor made to the needs of the big industry. Take the case of India where a clear dichotomy exists and it is the small enterprises which are "punished" for minor violations while the big fish never gets caught, no matter. how serious the violation is! Standards and specifications are manipulated such a way that only manufacturers with deep resources can "manage" them while the small players become the victims of the system. One thing is very clear that India always likes to be a country with strong rules on paper but with weak implementing infrastructure, few personnel and callous approach to safeguard the health of citizens!


V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com