FRUIT wholesalers and importers in Dhaka today threatened not to sell or import any fruits during the month of Ramadan if the use of “faulty” formalin detection device is not stopped immediately.The traders also urged the government not to take any step to destroy fruits in the name of formalin contamination without ensuring proper examination in the laboratory, as per a report in a local daily.”If there is any suspicion, fruit should be examined in the laboratory properly,” said Sirajul Islam, general secretary of Dhaka Metropolitan Fruits Import-Export and Merchant Multiple Cooperative Society Ltd.The fruit traders are being harassed as Dhaka Metropolitan Police started the anti-formalin drive on June 11 and kept destroying fruits after testing those by using Formaldehyde Metre Z-300, Sirajul said while reading out a written statement at a press conference at the association’s office, mentioned the report.The Formaldehyde Meter Z-300 is not meant for measuring formalin in fruit items, he said adding that they wrote to the kit’s makers in US. “The US company informed us that the kit is meant to measure chemicals or gases in the air of laboratories, not in fruit items,” Sirajul added. The general secretary said they communicated with the Commerce Ministry and the DMP before beginning of the recent drive requesting not to use the kit.Around 150 containers of imported fruits, including grapes, apples, and dates remained unreleased at Chittagong Port, and those fruits will not be sold out if the use of kits is not stopped, he said.The fruit shops in the capital will remain shut from 6:00am to 12:00pm on Saturday, he added.The entire health of the nation is being held hostage by these unscrupulous dealers in death — these so-called farmers who spray multiple chemicals into their fruits, vegetables and fishes to ensure that they make quick profits while keeping fresh foodstuffs for themselves. What is more galling is the complete uncertainty under which we citizens live — currently there is no certified way of knowing whether the food which we consume daily is indeed free of toxic matter — as there are uncertainties with the way toxic stuffs are measured in food. The only way to be completely sure to get rid of formalin in food by submerging the fruits or vegetables in water and vinegar as formal in readily dissolves in an aqueous solution — but other chemicals are used and no one is aware of the levels of toxicity present as no instruments are present to measure them. Thus everytime we have something meant to be nutritious we are essentially playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette where we end up eating stuff which may ultimately contaminate our vital internal organs.It is extremely unfortunate that the government has no political will to completely put a stop to this – all that is necessary is that a stringent law is passed with the highest penalty reserved for these death dealers. This will ensure that no one will have the courage to dabble in injecting poisons to those food which are vital to our nutrition and survival .The only alternative is to have a physically and mentally old age population thirty years from now and the expenditure of enormous amounts of money to keep these people alive while their kidneys and other vital organs deteriorate. The enormous external costs of the future must be understood today—and rectified, while we have the chance to do it.
