Aug 3, 2019
Kid falls ill after consuming toy packed as ‘free gift’ in food item
Nagpur: Plastic and rubber toys distributed as free gifts in packets of chips, cakes, chocolates and biscuits can bring serious health hazards for kids. A recent incidence in Wardha in which a kid fell ill after consuming a plastic toy received as a free gift in pack of fryums made the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to take action against the manufacturer based in Nagpur.
Following the latest directives issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Nagpur FDA has ordered city-based Ms Sunder Food products Pvt Ltd to recall its product ‘Rock and Roll — Taggy corn rings’ from market and stop production until next order.
Joint Commissioner (Food) Shashikant Kekre informed that distribution of promotional toys in packed food items is banned now. “Wardha FDA received a complaint that a kid suffered from health problems after consuming a plastic toy distributed inside a pack. Food safety officer from Wardha Raviraj Dhabarde investigated the matter and later reported it to Nagpur FDA as the manufacturer was from Nagpur,” he said.
According to Dhabarde, the product contained plastic toy which resembled with food item and as a result the child consumed the toy and it became hazardous to his life.
In Nagpur, food safety officer Anand Mahajan visited the company M/s Sunder food products. Here, the FDA team was told that entire stock of the said food item has been dispatched to markets.
“We immediately ordered them to recall the stock from market and stop its production. A copy of FSSAI’s recent notification was also handed over to the owners,” Kekre added.
TOI tried to contact the manufacturers in Nagpur but they were not reachable.
Activists raise objections to FSSAI panel on genetically modified foods
The Coalition for a GM-Free India is a loose, informal network of scores of organisations and individuals from across India, campaigning and advocating to keep India GM-free.
We demand from the FSSAI an explanation to the citizens of India: Coalition statement
HIGHLIGHTS
- GM-Free India said that some of the panel members are GM crop/fish developers themselves
- Activits alleged that chairperson of this panel will turn body into promotional body for GMOs and GM foods
- Coalition said that FSSAI should understand GM crop development science is not the same as safety science
Activists, under the banner of The Coalition for a GM-Free India, have raised objections to the constitution of the panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Foods under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
The FSSAI has recently notified a 11-member panel - Genetically Modified Organisms and Foods headed by Dr SR Rao.
In a statement released on Friday, GM-Free India said that some of the panel members are GM crop/fish developers themselves and it appears to be a promotional body for GMO and Foods; on the contrary such a panel is supposed to have food safety as its main mandate.
The Coalition for a GM-Free India is a loose, informal network of scores of organisations and individuals from across India, campaigning and advocating to keep India GM-free.
"We find that the panel is populated with agricultural sciences experts including plant and fish breeders with biotechnology as their specialisation. Some of the panel members are GM crop/fish developers themselves," the activists alleged.
In their statement, activists alleged that having Dr SR Rao as the chairperson of this panel will turn the body into a promotional body for GMOs and GM foods.
"He is not qualified to fulfill the mandate of this panel and it is not clear why a GM crop promoter, and an agriculture scientist [with specialisation in plant pathology] is heading a food safety panel," the statement said.
Activists pointed out that Dr Rao is a member of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board which comes as a direct conflict of interest with the role assigned in this panel.
The coalition has said that the FSSAI should understand GM crop development science is not the same as safety science.
"We demand that the panel be scrapped and re-constituted, especially now that applications are being sent from GEAC [Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee] to FSSAI for various GM foods,"a coalition statement said.
"We demand from the FSSAI an explanation to the citizens of India on what are the terms of reference of this panel on GMOs and Foods, how and why were these particular experts chosen [whose expertise is not the question being asked here, but about the relevance of that expertise in this panel], and how a citizen is supposed to be assured about the safety of food from the risks of GMOs and transgenic foods," the statement added.
"We demand that a re-constitution take place with independent food/health safety experts including genetic toxicologists, nutrition scientists, epidemiologists, other public health experts, experts from Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) since food constitutes an important part of these systems," the coalition said.
MP: Reward of 11,000 for information about food adulteration
The Madhya Pradesh government on Friday announced a reward of Rs 11,000 for information about food adulteration.
The district collector would give the reward to anyone who gives information about food adulteration, health minister Tulsi Silavat told reporters here.
"The informant's identity should be kept secret," he said.
The minister had launched a drive against adulteration of milk and manufacturing of products using adulterated milk on July 19.
"We have arrested a man (for adulteration) under the National Security Act on Thursday in Ujjain," he said.
Those who adulterate food products should "leave Madhya Pradesh or be ready to stay behind the bars," he said.
The state government has also started the process of amending the law to provide it more teeth for curbing food adulteration, Silavat said.
Health Department's Principal Secretary Pallavi Jain Govil said Rs 7 crore in fine were recovered from the culprits in food adulteration cases in 2018.
Laboratories would be set up at Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior for detection of adulteration of food products and medicines, she said.
Besides, a network of laboratories certified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) would be set up, she said.
She also informed that on the lines of Mohalla clinics in Delhi, 25 clinics would be opened in Madhya Pradesh under a pilot project.
These clinics would be called 'Sanjeevani clinics', she said.
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