Discussants at a roundtable yesterday stressed the need for strictly controlling formalin import and its use where food items were sourced to reduce food adulteration.
The draft formalin control act should have penalty provisions of 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and Tk 1 lakh fine for those who adulterate food, they added.
The roundtable, "Widespread presence of poisonous food: Proposed formalin control and food safety law”, was organised by Save the Environment Movement in the capital's Jatiya Press Club.
Food adulteration with poisonous chemicals like formalin is widespread, said the speakers.
Formalin is regularly applied on fish, fruit, meat, milk and other food items, leading to different diseases like cancers, asthma, liver cirrhosis and skin diseases and causing kidney damage.
Controlling the use of formalin in foods only through building awareness is not possible, said the movement Secretary Abdus Sobhan.
The government must ensure safe foods through necessary institutions and properly implementing time befitting laws, he said.
As per research of National Food Safety Laboratory of Institute of Public Health (1PH), 40 to 54 percent of fish, meat, milk, fruits, rice, pulse, oil, spice and salt are adulterated, said Sobhan.
As per IPH's February 13 reports, these foods contain different kinds of pesticides like aldrin, DDT, heptachlor, ethion and methoxychlor and heavy metals like lead and arsenic, he said.
Sobhan said IPH found 2,990 out of5,759 food samples adulterated during tests conducted in 2010 and 187 out of377 samples adulterated in tests conducted in 2013.
Manzill Murshid, president of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, said the draft act has a provision allowing penalised persons to get a licence to import formalin after five years.
“They should be banned for life from getting the licence,” he said.
Save the Environment Movement Chairman Abu Naser Khan, Bangladesh Law Commission acting chairman Dr M Shah Alam and Health and Hope Hospital Director Dr Lelin Chowdhury spoke at the programme.