Politics

Contamination of Packaged Milk Rampant in Pakistan

By Anne Landman

Frame from video promoting Pakistan's dairy industry Pakistani television ads portray packaged milk as healthful, even sexy, and encourage parents to feed milk to their children, but
the National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights in Lahore, Pakistan, created a monitoring committee to ensure the quality of foodstuffs in Pakistan after a list of harmful ingredients were found in packaged milk. Dr. Rana Ikhlaq of the Federal Ministry of Livestock & Dairy disclosed that the Tetra Pak milk being sold in Lahore, a city of 12 million, was not only substandard, but harmful to human life. Dr. Ikhlaq told the committee that each kilogram of pure milk was found to have been mixed with 39 kilograms of contaminated, or "chemical" milk, that contained formalin (a chemical used to preserve dead bodies and body parts), bleaching powder, urea (the chief solid component in mammalian urine), vegetable oil, washing powder, glucose, hair removing powder, starch and other chemicals. Fully 75 percent of milk samples tested were found to be substandard. The committee chairman said the adulteration is causing diseases like cancer, hepatitis, typhoid and hypertension among Pakistani citizens, and asked that steps be taken to cancel the licenses or seal the factories of adulterated food manufacturers to cope with the situation.

Full post as published by PR Watch on May 17, 2010 (boomark / email).