As deadline nears, number of applicants for food safety licence goes down in Coimbatore

Instead of a spurt of applications being filed now with deadline just round the corner, the number of food businesses knocking on the doors of the Food Safety Wing here has actually declined in the past three months.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had mandated all food business operators to obtain licences/registrations before August 4.

Instead of a spurt of applications being filed now with deadline just round the corner, the number of food businesses knocking on the doors of the Food Safety Wing here has actually declined in the past three months.

A senior food safety official told The Hindu that just around 18 per cent of the total 26,691 food businesses, including ration shops and Government school hostels, in Coimbatore district had valid licences/registrations now.

The number of licences issued in June was 69 while the average figure used to hover between 200 and 300 till a few months ago. This was mainly due to the repeated deadline extensions.

When the Food Safety Act was notified and implemented from August 5, 2011, businesses were given an initial deadline of a year to register. It was extended from August 4, 2012, to February 4, 2013, and to February 4 this year and again to August 4. Licence was mandatory for all food business concerns with an annual turnover of above Rs. 12 lakh and those below this threshold have to obtain registration, both of which were valid for a year.

Further, the official said that even those who had obtained licences were failing to renew them. While 8,607 had registered last year, only 2,498 have renewed it. Similarly, 3,714 licences were issued last year of which 2,327 were not renewed. A total of 7,496 firms had failed to renew their licences/registration. In the absence of any instructions from FSSAI, the officials were also reluctant to launch a campaign asking food businesses to seek or renew licences.

Only the multinational companies involved in food businesses and their distributors along with restaurants were now keen on obtaining or renewing licences. However, those firms who were most in need of licences, such as the roadside food shops and small canteens, besides small groceries, are extremely reluctant, the official added.

FSSAI chief tight-lipped about extension to current licencing deadline

On the sidelines of an event held in New Delhi recently, K Chandramouli, chairman, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) neither confirmed nor denied that there would be an extension to the current deadline for licencing and registration (August 4, 2014) of food business operators (FBO) across the country.

“No letters were issued to the states in this regard,” he added, and stated that the apex food regulator was awaiting the full interpretation of the Bombay High Court order. “When we obtain that, we will decide the future course action regarding advisories and regulations.”

Sourish Bhattacharyya on the food safety comedy circus

It's been less than a month since the government made the ill-advised move to ban foie gras (goose liver) imports on the ground that the delicacy is injurious to the birds because of the way they are force-fed to fatten their liver.

Well, foie gras may not be the only sign of refined taste that may disappear from our plates because all hell has been let loose by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Like the misdirected logic of the foie gras ban (name one animal product, starting with milk, that doesn't involve some form of cruelty or the other!), the rules being pushed by the FSSAI seem to have been conceived at Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

The Food Safety and Standards Act, without doubt, was legislated in 2006 with the good intention of bringing the provisions of sevenodd central acts, beginning with the antiquated Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act of 1995, under one comprehensive, contemporary legal umbrella. A brainchild of the previous government, it was welcomed by all as a salutary initiative, but the mood changed once the rules framed under the Act came into effect in 2011. It sent food importers running for protective cover, but none was forthcoming.

For starters, the new rules are based on the list of 355 edible food products recognised by the PFA Act of 1955, which is surprising because the Codex Alimentarius, the Bible of food standards prepared jointly, and updated continually, by the World Health Organisation and the Food & Agriculture Organisation, lists more than 3,500 categories (not items!) of edible food products. In what could be a scene straight out of Catch 22, or Comedy Nights with Kapil, the new rules, for instance, allow green olives to be imported, but bar the ones that are black, because it regards black olives as green olives gone bad.

The new rules don't recognise the existence of mayonnaise, or of sausages, unless they carry a 'cooked meat' label. They are OK with cheese made with pasteurised milk, but they don't allow Parmegiano Reggiano (the original parmesan) access to the Indian market because it is made with milk that is not pasteurised. Nor do they accept that there's something called 'canola oil', leading to a piquant situation where the FSSAI wants canola oil shipments to carry labels describing the product as 'rapeseed oil', which their Canadian importers are refusing to do. LABELLING, of course, is another parallel circus act.

Not only is the FSSAI making absurd demands (like insisting that all wine labels must mention expiry dates!), it is asking for all food labels to be translated into English. Try as hard as you may, you cannot get a Japanese sushi rice producer, or a Thai manufacturer of condiments, to invest in a machine dedicated to printing labels in English for the Indian market.

The world uses their products without blinking an eye, so why should they make an investment for a market that, anyway, is quite small! I believe the Japanese had an apoplectic fit when they were asked by FSSAI to produce a health certificate and a certificate of provenance (both in impeccable English!) for each container of fish that arrived from their country.

I foresee two serious consequences of this legal mayhem. One, the unmet demand for imports will increasingly be met by airline and shipping crew 'hand-carrying' food items at an exorbitant price. This would hurt the government because of the loss of revenue involved. And if the rest of the world starts viewing the FSSAI actions as non-tariff barriers and starts retaliating, then Indian agricultural exports will suffer more than the imports that are getting blocked because of the food safety circus.

A NEW FOODIE HUB RISES IN VASANT KUNJ

Ambience Mall in Vasant Kunj, long dismissed as the poor cousin of its upscale neighbours (DLF Emporio and Promenade), is fast becoming a gourmet magnet. Its transformation started with the arrival of Yauatcha, the dim sum restaurant from London that opened here after a successful launch in Mumbai, then Starbucks, and finally, Indigo Deli, Rahul Akerkar's restaurant franchise designed for the malls. Yauatcha has had mixed luck, Starbucks has returned to normal life after those early headlinegrabbing queues, and Indigo Deli, having seen a great opening, ran into a kerfuffle over table reservations, but none seems to be struggling to survive.

Come August 25, and they'll be joined by Pizza Express, the international chain of Italian restaurants born in the UK, famous for its invention, dough balls served with garlic butter dip, reaching Delhi via Mumbai. A floor above, Mistral, the restaurant run by PVR Cinemas, has turned around its menu under the supervision of Mayank Tiwari, who has worked with both the Olive and the Smoke House franchises. There's also talk of Jamie's Kitchen opening - it'll be the country's first Jamie Oliver restaurant - some time later this year on the other side of Indigo Deli and Pizza Express. The mall, it seems, has finally come of age.

JOOST THE WAY WE LIKE IT

People in the food business love to joke that no one ever pays to go out and have a healthy meal. An alumna of Switzerland's prestigious Les Roches Hotel Management School, Rivoli Sinha set out to prove this long-held theory wrong, although she had the more comfortable option of taking up a position in the `2,500-crore security company founded and owned by her father, R.K. Sinha, the BJP's newly elected Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar.

Rivoli, who's still in her 20s and has a name drawn from the Spanish word for 'revolution', came across Boost, an Australian chain of fresh fruit juice stores, on a visit Down Under coinciding with the takeover of a major local company by her father. She chose to bring the brand home, but realised that she would have to find a new name because Boost was already a milk supplement brand.

She zeroed in on Joost, opened her first outlet at a South Delhi fitness centre, and broke even within seven months. "Profitability is the only reason why I got into this business," Rivoli said over a sampler from her juice menu at Joost's Cyber Hub outlet.

She visits Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district every February for the annual auction of hapoos (Alphonso) mangoes - this year, she picked up five quintals. She insists on only late-harvest Sweet Charlie strawberries from Mahabaleshwar because their natural sugar content rules out the need for additional sugar.

She sources her blueberries and raspberries from New Zealand, but she has found a supplier for blueberries in Himachal Pradesh. And she gets her wheatgrass from a grower in Sonepat who uses the hydroponic growing system to stop bugs from thriving on the grass. This attention to detail is getting her the footfalls - Joost's 8ftx7ft outlet at the Medanta Medicity serves 400-500 people a day. That must be keeping the cash registers ringing.

How much antibiotics do Indians consume with 240 cr chicken a year?

The revelation of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in Delhi on Wednesday that we unknowingly ingest a lot of antibiotics along with sumptuous chicken meals is unnerving, but what we don’t realise is that this practice has been going on for years.

The problem is that chicken are recklessly fed the same antibiotics that we use to fight common infections. By consuming these antibiotics through the chicken meat we eat, we naturally develop resistance to the bacteria that they can otherwise fight. But additionally, thanks to indiscriminate use, the bacteria in the chicken that have developed resistance to these antibiotics, can be transferred to us if the meat is not properly cooked. It’s a double whammy.

If we are chicken lovers, perhaps we are already resistant to some or all of the antibiotics that the CSE has found in 70 meat samples from different parts of Delhi and Gurgaon, and chicken meat could have been why we didn’t respond to some medicines we took earlier.

It’s now common knowledge that many of the infections that flouroquinolones (a family of broad spectrum antibiotics that the CSE has found in its study) fought earlier are resistant to the drug.

Globally, the practice has been on for several decades.The US alone, where it’s widespread, 15-17 million pounds of antibiotics are reportedly used in poultry farms every year. However, in Europe and Canada, it’s banned.

Poultry are indiscriminately fed with antibiotics to avoid infections as well as to boost growth by harnessing probiotic action (suppressing bad bacteria and protecting good bacteria in the gut),from the time they come out of the hatchery to the time they are converted into meat. Apparently, small doses of antibiotics make the birds grow three percent more than they would otherwise do.

And controversies have also been common.

In a notable study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (6 February 2002), it was found that people who harboured ciprofloxacin-resistant bacteria (one of the drugs that the CSE has found in their study) had acquired them by eating pork that was contaminated with salmonella. The report also said that salmonella resistant to the antibiotic flouroquine could be spread from swine to humans, and therefore, the use of flouroquinolones (the group of drugs that the CSE found in its study) in food animals needed to be prohibited. An earlier New England Journal of Medicine study had found that 20 percent of ground meat obtained in supermarkets contained salmonella, out of which, 84 percent was resistant to at least one form of antibiotic.

What the CSE had done by disclosing an untold truth with evidence, should be a wake up call for India because of burgeoning chicken consumption. According to anEconomic Times report , India’s poultry industry is worth Rs 40,000 crore and it produces 240 crore birds every year. Reportedly, to meet the demand, the industry needs to expand at an annual rate of 12-15 percent. The consumption of chicken is expected to double in the next five years. Even big industrial houses are now engaged in poultry industry.

Think about all the antibiotics that these 240 crore plus birds consume and pass on to us!

The growth of the poultry industry and increasing consumption of chicken also means possible ingestion of more and more antibiotics and drug-resistant bacteria. It is a scary prospect that the government needs to respond at once. The only way to address it is by making testing and supervision stringent because unlike in America, where two antibiotics that were found to be resistant in poultry in 2000 could be pulled out, in India such drugs are freely produced and sold without prescription under various names.

More over, the US Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) stipulates that poultry farmers observe a period of withdrawal. According to FSIS guidelines, “before the bird can be slaughtered, a withdrawal period is required from the time antibiotics are administered. This ensures that no residues are present in the bird's system.” FSIS randomly samples poultry at slaughter and tests for residues. Reportedly, data from this monitoring program have shown a very low percentage of residue violations.

But in India, neither the monitoring service nor the control of the indiscriminate sale of antibiotics seem to work, if at all they are existent. If we are serious about the huge health-bills because of drug resistance, similar programmes have to be introduced soon. Both the organised and unorganised parts of the poultry industry have to be brought under strict safety norms.

Acknowledging the gravity of the phenomenon, the WHO has recommended reduction of “the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials in food animals for the protection of human health." It recommends that prescriptions are required for all antibiotics used to treat sick food animals, and antimicrobials for growth promotion are either phased out or terminated if they are used for human treatment.

Is India listening?

KFC owner says China scandal hurting sales

In what appears to be a first across all KFC franchises globally, KFC India has unveiled a segregated vegetarian menu along with a strong message about its newfound bias for vegetarian offerings.

BEIJING: The owner of the KFC and Pizza Hut restaurant chains says a scandal over food safety in China has hurt sales and might be severe enough to cut into the company's global profit. 

Yum Brands Inc, in a filing with the US securities regulator, said Thursday the scandal over accusations Shanghai Husi Food Inc sold expired beef and chicken has caused a "significant, negative impact" on sales. 

It gave no financial details and said it was too early to know when sales might rebound. But it said that if the "significant sales impact" continues, it might hurt this year's profit. 

Chinese authorities have detained five Husi employees but have yet to confirm a TV report the company sold expired meat to KFC and McDonald's Corp restaurants in China.

Antibiotic residues in chicken found by CSE’s pollution monitoring lab

The pollution monitoring laboratory (PML) of the Centre for Sceince and Environment (CSE), the New Delhi-based research and advocacy think-tank, found residues of antibiotics in 40 per cent of the chicken samples it tested.

The think-tank’s recent study also concluded that Indians are developing resistance to antibiotics, and falling prey to a host of otherwise curable ailments. Some of this resistance might be due to the large-scale unregulated use of antibiotics in the poultry industry. 

Releasing the lab’s findings, Sunita Narain, director general, CSE, said, “Antibiotics are neither restricted to humans nor limited to treating diseases. The poultry sector uses them as growth promoters. Chickens are fed antibiotics so that they gain weight and grow faster.” 

Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE, and head of the lab, said, “Public health experts have long suspected that such rampant use of antibiotics in animals could be a reason for increasing antibiotic resistance in India.” 

“But the government has no data on the use of antibiotics in the country, let alone on the prevalence of antibiotic resistance. Our study proves the rampant use, and also shows that this could be strongly linked to growing antibiotic resistance in humans in India,” he added.

Test results

PML tested 70 samples of branded and non-branded chicken, procured from various markets across Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). Of these, 36 samples were picked from Delhi, 12 from Noida, eight from Gurgaon and seven each from Faridabad and Ghaziabad from various markets. 

Three tissues (muscle, liver and kidney) were tested for the presence of six antibiotics widely used in poultry - oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline (class tetracyclines); enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin (class fluoroquinolones) and neomycin (an aminoglycoside). 

So far, this is one of the biggest studies conducted in India to test chicken for antibiotic residues.

The residues of five of the six antibiotics were found in all the three tissues of the chicken samples. They were found to be in the range of 3.37-131.75µg/kg. 

Of the samples found tainted with antibiotic residues, 22.9 per cent contained residues of only one antibiotic, while the remaining 17.1 per cent samples had residues of more than one antibiotic. 

In one sample purchased from Gurgaon, a cocktail of three antibiotics (oxytetracycline, doxycycline and enrofloxacin) was found. This indicated the rampant use of multiple antibiotics by the poultry industry.

CSE researchers pointed out that antibiotics are frequently pumped into chicken during its life cycle of 35-42 days.

They are occasionally given as a drug to treat infections, regularly mixed with feed to promote growth and routinely administered to all birds for several days to prevent infections, even when there are no signs of it. 

“Our study is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more antibiotics that are rampantly used, but the lab has not tested them yet,” stated Bhushan.

What does it mean?

The large-scale misuse and overuse of antibiotics in chicken is leading to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the chicken itself. 

These bacteria are then transmitted to humans through food or environment. Additionally, eating small doses of antibiotics through chicken could also lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans.

In a tele-conference, Dr Devi Shetty, cardiac surgeon and founder of Narayana Health, said, “Amongst people who came to the hospital to cure health-related problems, at least 10 per cent were found to have been infected with the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.” 

To ascertain the linkage between overuse of antibiotics in poultry farms and antibiotic resistance in humans, CSE researchers reviewed 13 studies conducted by various government and private hospitals across the country between 2002 and 2013. 

They found that resistance was very high against ciprofloxacin, doxycycline and tetracyclines. These are the same antibiotics that were detected in the chicken samples.

The problem is compounded by the fact that many essential and important antibiotics for humans are being used by the poultry industry. 

In India, there is growing evidence that resistance to fluoroquinolones (such as ciprofloxacin) is rapidly increasing. 

Treating fatal diseases like sepsis, pneumonia and tuberculosis (TB) with fluoroquinolones is becoming tougher, because microbes that cause these diseases are increasingly becoming resistant to fluoroquinolones.

Replying to a question in Parliament recently, health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the number of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) cases in the country has increased fivefold between 2011 and 2013. 

Studies showed that one-third of MDR-TB cases were resistant to fluoroquinolones, which are critical for MDR-TB treatment.

The CSE study found two fluoroquinolone antibiotics (enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin) in 28.6 per cent of the chicken samples tested.

With antibiotics losing their effectiveness, the world would need newer antibiotics. Unfortunately, no new class of antibiotics has hit the market since the late 1980s. 

In the United States, which is one of the largest users of antibiotics for animal food production, more than two million people suffer from antibiotic resistance-related illnesses every year; 23,000 of them succumb to the diseases. 

Annual healthcare costs due to antibiotic resistance are estimated to be as high as $20 billion. 

No such estimates are available for India, but cases of high antibiotic resistance are emerging from across the country.

So what is to be done?

Governments worldwide are adopting regulations to control the use of antibiotics. But only those countries have shown signs of improvement that have taken stringent actions.

The European Union (EU), for instance, has banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that antibiotics that are critical for human use should not be used in animals. 

Countries have also set standards for antibiotics in food commodities.

CSE researchers pointed out that the poultry industry in India is growing at 10 per cent per annum. Poultry constitutes more than 50 per cent of all the meat consumed in India.

Said Bhushan, “India will have to adopt a comprehensive approach to tackle this problem. The biggest problem is the emergence of resistant bacteria in animals and its transmission through food and environment.” 

“Till the time we keep misusing antibiotics in animals, we would not be able to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance,” he added. 

“For India, therefore, the priority should be to put systems in place to reduce the use of antibiotics in poultry and other food animals,” Bhushan stated.

CSE recommended the following to the government:

Ban the use of antibiotics as growth promoters and for mass disease prevention. Antibiotics critical for humans should not be allowed in the poultry industry;

Antibiotics should not be used as a feed additive. The government should regulate the poultry feed industry;

Unlicenced and unlabelled antibiotics should not be sold in the market;

The government should promote the development of alternatives and good farm management practices;

Set standards for antibiotics in chicken products;

Set up systems for the monitoring and surveillance of antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance in humans and animals, and

Set pollution control standards for the poultry industry.

சிதம்பரத்தில் காலாவதியான பிஸ்கெட் பாக்கெட்டுகள் பறிமுதல்

சிதம்பரம், ஜூலை 31:

சிதம்பரம் எம்கேதோட்டம் அம்மன் கோயில் தெரு பகுதியை சேர்ந்தவர் ஜெயபாலன் மகன் ஆனந்தபாலன் (30). இவர் சிதம்பரம் கண்ணங்குடி புறவழிச்சாலை அருகே உள்ள பங்க் கடை ஒன்றில் பிஸ்கெட் பாக்கெட் வாங்கி சாப்பிட்டுள்ளார்.

சிறிது நேரத்தில் அவருக்கு உடல் நலக்குறைவு ஏற்பட்டுள்ளது. சந்தேகத்தின் பேரில் அந்த பிஸ்கட் பாக்கெட் கவரை அவர் பார்த்த போது 2013ம் ஆண்டோடு காலாவதியானது தெரியவந்தது. உடனடியாக அவர் சிதம்பரம் அரசு மருத்துவமனையில் சிகிச்சை பெற்றார்.

கடலூர் மாவட்ட உணவு பாதுகாப்பு அதிகாரி ராஜா உத்தரவின் பேரில் குமராட்சி ஒன்றிய உணவு பாதுகாப்பு அலுவலர் மாரிமுத்து, சிதம்பரம் நகராட்சி உணவு பாதுகாப்பு அலுவலர் பத்மநாபன் ஆகியோர் நேற்று மதியம் சிதம்பரம் புறவழிச்சாலையில் உள்ள சம்மந்தப்பட்ட கடையில் சோதனை நடத்தினர். அப்போது கடையில் காலாவதியான பிஸ்கெட் பாக்கெட்டுகள் இருந்துள்ளன. உணவு பாதுகாப்பு அலுவலர்கள் அதனை பறிமுதல் செய்து அதனை ஆய்வுக்காக எடுத்து சென்றனர். மேலும் அக்கடையில் தயாரிப்பு தேதி இல்லாத சிப்ஸ் பாக்கெட்டுக�யும் பறிமுதல் செய்தனர். சிதம்பரம் நகரம் முழுவதிலும் உள்ள கடைகளில் காலாவதியான பிஸ்கட் பாக்கெட்டுகள், டீத்தூள் பாக்கெட்டுகள் உள்ளிட்ட பொருட்கள் விற்கப்படுகிறதா என சோதனை செய்ய வேண்டும் என சமூக ஆர்வலர்கள் கோரிக்கை விடுத்துள்ளனர்.

நாடாளுமன்ற உணவு தரக்குறைவாக இருப்பதாக மாநிலங்களைவில் எம்.பிக்கள் புகார்

நாடாளுமன்ற உணவு விடுதியில் வழங்கப்படும் உணவு சுகாதாரமானதாக இல்லை என்றும், அதை உட்கொண்ட எம்.பி.க்களுக்கு உடல்நலக்குறைவு ஏற்படுவதாகவும் மாநிலங்களவையில் எம்.பி.க்கள் புகார் எழுப்பினர்.

மாநிலங்களவையில் பூஜ்ஜிய நேரத்தின்போது, நாடாளுமன்ற வளாக உணவு விடுதியில் வழங்கப்படும் உணவு, தரமானதாக இல்லை என்று மாநிலங்களவையில், உறுப்பினர்கள் சிலர் பூஜ்ஜிய நேரத்தின் போது புகார் தெரிவித்தனர்.

அப்போது ஐக்கிய ஜனதா தளக் கட்சியைச் சேர்ந்த கே.சி தியாகி பேசும்போது, "சமாஜ்வாதி உறுப்பினர்கள் ராம் கோபால் யாதவ் மற்றும் ஜெயா பச்சன் உள்ளிட்ட சிலர், நாடாளுமன்ற வளாகத்தில் உணவு விடுதியின் உணவு உண்ட பின்னர், உடல் உபாதைகளால் பாதிக்கப்பட்டனர். அங்கு வழங்கப்படும் உணவு தரம் வாய்ந்ததாக இல்லை" என்றார்.

மேலும், இவை எதிர்க்கட்சிகளை பேச விடாமல் தடுக்க ஆளும் கட்சி செய்யும் சதி என்றும் ராம் கோபால் யாதவ், கிண்டலாக பேசினார்.

யுபிஎஸ்சி தேர்வு சர்ச்சை, நித்தின் கட்கரி உள்ளிட்ட அமைச்சர்களின் வீடுகளில் ஒட்டுக்கேட்பு கருவி பொறுத்தப்பட்டது தொடர்பான சர்ச்சை இன்று இரு அவைகளிலும் எழுப்பப்பட்டது. இதனால் பகல் 12 மணி வரை அவை நடவடிக்கைகள் பாதிக்கப்பட்டது. பின்னர் கூடிய மாநிலங்களவையில், உணவு பொருள் தரப் பிரச்சினை குறித்து நீண்ட விவாதம் நடைபெற்றது.

இதனைத் தொடர்ந்து பேசிய ஜெயா பச்சன், "நானும் இதனால் பாதிக்கப்பட்டேன். பட்ஜெட் மீதான விவாதங்கள் நீண்ட கடந்த சில நாட்களில், எம்.பிக்கள் அனைவரும் வளாக விடுதியிலேயே உணவு சாப்பிட நேர்ந்தது. இதனால் பல எம்.பிக்கள் உடல் நலக் குறைவால் பாதிக்கப்பட்டனர்" என்றார்.

இதற்கு பதிலளித்து பேசிய நாடாளுமன்ற உணவுத்துறை குழு உறுப்பினரும் காங்கிரஸ் கட்சியின் மூத்த தலைவருமான ராஜீவ் ஷுக்லா, "நாடாளுமன்றத்திற்கு உணவு வகைகள் காலை 6 மணிக்கு கொண்டுவரப்படுகிறது. இவை அனைத்தும் மாலை வரை வைத்திருப்பதாலேயே இந்த அசவுகரியம் ஏற்படுகிறது.

முன்னதாக, விடுதியில் நாளின் இடையே உணவு வகைகள் தயாரிக்கப்பட்டன. ஆனால் பெரிய அளவில் எரிவாயுப் பொருட்கள் உபயோகப்படுத்தப்படுவதால், எதிர்ப்பாராத விபத்து நேரக்கூடும் என்று முன்னாள் சபாநாயகர் மீரா குமார் அறிவித்தார். இதன் காரணமாக, கடந்த சில நாட்களாக விடுதியின் சமையலறை செயல்படவில்லை" என்று கூறினார்.

இதனைத் தொடர்ந்து பேசிய நாடாளுமன்ற விவகாரத் துறை அமைச்சர் வெங்கய்ய நாயுடு, இது குறித்து அவசர நிலையில் நடவடிக்கை எடுக்கப்படும் என்று அறிவித்தார்.

நாட்டிலேயே நாடாளுமன்ற உணவு விடுதியில் உணவு வகைகள் மிக குறைந்த விலையில் விற்க்கப்படுகின்றன. இங்கு உணவு வகைகளின் விலை குறைந்தபட்சமாக ரூ.12 ஆக உள்ளது. அதிகபட்சமாக ஒரு பிளேட் சிக்கன் பிரியாணி ரூ.34க்கு விற்கபடுவது கவனிக்கத்தக்கது.

Kochi corporation moves against illegal abattoirs

KOCHI: In the wake of recent controversies over unauthorised slaughter of animals at Polakkandam market in west Kochi, the Kochi corporation has issued directives to curb the functioning of illegal slaughterhouses in the city. "The corporation secretary has been authorized to take action against those involved in slaughtering animals at Polakkandam. Animals can be slaughtered only at the slaughterhouse at Kaloor," said mayor Tony Chammany.

The mayor said that he had received a memorandum from Shyla Thadevouse, councillor from Moolamkuzhi, regarding the illegal killing. Animals were being butchered in shanties during day time. With the abattoir at Mattancherry becoming non-functional, the city has to depend on the slaughterhouse at Kaloor for meat. The abattoir was closed down after the pollution control board (PCB) opposed its operations. "This has resulted in the mushrooming of illegal slaughterhouses in the city, particularly in the west Kochi region," she said.

The councillor also said that the meat for sale was processed under unhygienic conditions.

Even at a time when food safety officials were raiding hotels and restaurants, there has been no sincere effort to keep track of the quality of meat sold in the city, she added.

Eating chicken can make you immune to antibiotics

Each time you eat chicken, you could also be consuming a cocktail of antibiotics. A lab study released by the Centre for Science and Environment found antibiotic residues in 40% of chicken samples bought from outlets in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

While the amount of antibiotics found in each sample was not very high, experts said regular consumers of such meat could be in danger of developing antibiotic resistance. In other words, eating chicken with drug traces over a period of time could make you immune to important antibiotics prescribed to treat common illnesses.

The study said it had evidence of largescale and reckless use of antibiotics by poultry owners, which can also lead to antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains in the birds itself.

CSE said it conducted the study after being alerted by doctors, including Bangalorebased cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty, about a rising trend of antibiotic resistance among patients.

CSE said 22.9% of the 70 samples collected contained residues of one antibiotic while 17.1% had more than one. A sample purchased from Gurgaon was found to have a cocktail of as many as three antibiotics.

The CSE report, released on Wednesday, said poultry owners routinely pumped antibiotics into chicken during their short life of about 35 to 42 days, to promote growth so that they look bigger and also to treat or prevent infections. India has no law to regulate antibiotic use in the poultry sector.

CSE’s research team tested chicken samples at its Pollution Monitoring Laboratory. Three tissues in each sample were tested — muscle, kidney and liver.

Residues of five of the six antibiotics were found in all three tissues of the samples in the range of 3.37 to 131.75 micrograms per kg.

According to Dr Shetty, after a researcher conducted a study on antibiotic resistance at his hospital, they found about 10% of the patients to be resistant to common antibiotics.

“These are people who probably haven’t taken antibiotics before. They are villagers. We started thinking it could be caused from the food they are eating. That is why I approached CSE to do a study and now the data says it all,” he said on a live video chat from Bangalore during the presentation of the findings.

Dr Shetty also said that the li kelihood of becoming antibiotic resistant after eating chicken depended on how often one ate chicken. “If you are eating poultry chicken on a daily basis then you could be at a higher risk. That is why I asked my family to get only village reared chicken not the poultry ones,“ he said.

Dr Randeep Guleria, head of pulmonary medicine at AIIMS, said he wasn't surprised that antibiotics were entering the food chain through poultry .

“The findings aren't surprising. It's a big concern and in the last few years after the NDM 1 superbug scare, the medical community has been raising concern about indiscriminate use of antibiotics in poultry and agriculture,“ Dr Guleria said. Said Chandra Bhushan, CSE's deputy director general, “Our study is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more antibiotics that are rampantly used that the lab has not tested.“

Health minister Harsh Vardhan said he would react to the findings only after reading the entire lab report.

CSE also conducted a review of 13 research studies on antibiotic resistance (ABR) in the country since 2002 and found that ABR levels were very high for ciprofloxacin and doxycycline, both used for illnesses such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and urinary tract infections. High level residues of the same antibiotics were found in chicken samples tested by CSE. The problem, according to CSE, is compounded by the fact that antibiotics essential for humans are now used in the poultry industry .

Your chicken curry may've loads of Antibiotics

Antibiotics in your chicken!

Large-scale misuse and overuse of antibiotics in chicken is leading to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the chicken itself. Eating small doses of antibiotics through chicken can also lead to development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans. 

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) lab study found residues of antibiotics in 40 per cent of the samples of chicken that were tested.

Large-scale unregulated use of antibiotics in the poultry industry could be contributing to Indians developing resistance to antibiotics and falling prey to a host of otherwise curable ailments, according to the results of a new study released on Wednesday by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

In the biggest study done in India to test residues of antibiotics in chicken the CSE lab study found residues of antibiotics in 40 per cent of the samples of chicken that were tested.

Releasing the findings of the study which has been conducted by CSE’s Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML), Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre said: ``Antibiotics are no more restricted to humans nor limited to treating diseases. The poultry industry, for instance, uses antibiotics as a growth promoter. Chickens are fed antibiotics so that they gain weight and grow faster.”

The test results

PML tested 70 samples of chicken in Delhi and NCR: 36 samples were picked from Delhi, 12 from Noida, eight from Gurgaon and seven each from Faridabad and Ghaziabad. Three tissues — muscle, liver and kidney — were tested for the presence of six antibiotics widely used in poultry: oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline (class tetracyclines); enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin (class fluoroquinolones) and neomycin, an aminoglycoside.

Residues of five of the six antibiotics were found in all the three tissues of the chicken samples. They were in the range of 3.37-131.75 μg/kg. Of the 40 per cent samples found tainted with antibiotic residues, 22.9 per cent contained residues of only one antibiotic while the remaining 17.1 per cent samples had residues of more than one antibiotic.

In one sample purchased from Gurgaon, a cocktail of three antibiotics — oxytetracycline, doxycycline and enrofloxacin — was found. This indicates rampant use of multiple antibiotics in the poultry industry.

CSE researchers point out that antibiotics are frequently pumped into chicken during its life cycle of 35-42 days: they are occasionally given as a drug to treat infections, regularly mixed with feed to promote growth and routinely administered to all birds for several days to prevent infections, even when there are no signs of it.

``Our study is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more antibiotics that are rampantly used that the lab has not tested,” added Mr. Bhushan.

Large-scale misuse and overuse of antibiotics in chicken is leading to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the chicken itself. These bacteria are then transmitted to humans through food or environment. Additionally, eating small doses of antibiotics through chicken can also lead to development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans.

To ascertain the linkage between overuse of antibiotics in poultry farms and antibiotic resistance in humans, CSE researchers reviewed 13 studies conducted by various government and private hospitals across the country between 2002 and 2013. They found that resistance was very high against ciprofloxacin, doxycycline and tetracyclines. These are the same antibiotics that were detected in the chicken samples.

The problem is compounded by the fact that many essential and important antibiotics for humans are being used by the poultry industry.

In India, there is growing evidence that resistance to fluoroquinolones such as ciprofloxacin is rapidly increasing. Treating fatal diseases like sepsis, pneumonia and tuberculosis (TB) with fluoroquinolones is becoming tough because microbes that cause these diseases are increasingly becoming resistant to fluoroquinolones.

The CSE study found two fluoroquinolone antibiotics — enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin — in 28.6 per cent of the chicken samples tested.

Worldwide governments are adopting regulations to control the use of antibiotics. But only those countries have shown signs of improvement that have taken stringent actions. EU, for instance, has banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that antibiotics that are critical for human use should not be used in animals.

CSE researchers point out that the poultry industry in India is growing at 10 per cent per annum. Poultry constitutes more than 50 per cent of all the meat consumed in India.

Noted Mr. Bhushan: ``India will have to adopt a comprehensive approach to tackle this problem. The biggest problem is the emergence of resistant bacteria in animals and its transmission through food and environment. Till the time we keep misusing antibiotics in animals, we will not be able to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance. For India, therefore, the priority should be to put systems in place to reduce the use of antibiotics in poultry and other food animals.”