life in Bangladesh

December 7, 2007 9:21 AM

SOS-arsenic.net has excellent recipes, visuals, articles and information about life, history, living in Bangladesh, which borders India, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Assam, Burma and is near the Himalayan country of Bhutan. Among the many interesting things included in this site is disturbing information: mustard oil, whose production and consumption were until recently integral to India's way of life, has been banned, so as to provide a market for Monsanto's soya oil and the poisoning of between 85 and 125 million people with arsenic.
posted by nickyskye (20 comments total)

Here I thought that Monsanto was responsible for the arsenic poisoning, but it looks like the drinking water system was just poorly conceived and designed.

Monsanto's still evil though.
posted by sudasana at 9:35 AM on December 7, 2007

Mustard oil has been banned to provide a market for the poisoning? This is a very poorly formatted post.
posted by DU at 9:41 AM on December 7, 2007

I thought that ban had something to do with adulteration by toxins from another plant. It opened the market to other oils, but that doesn't mean the ban was placed in order to open the market to other oils.
posted by zennie at 9:46 AM on December 7, 2007

oh dear, sorry about the formatting. the interesting things I wanted to include were about banning mustard oil to make way for Monsanto's soya oil and also about the poisoning of between 85 and 125 million people with arsenic. How could that sentence be better structured?

Perhaps an also needs to be added to that sentence? Anyone, please hope me.
posted by nickyskye at 9:59 AM on December 7, 2007

There's some really interesting stuff in here, but the way the site is organized and written, I'm having a hard time parsing out whether it's confusing because of language issues or conspiracy theory paranoia issues (or both).

On the other hand, I think there's little doubt that Monsanto is evil, and even less doubt that it's a tragedy that Bangladeshis don't have easy access to clean water.
posted by infinitywaltz at 10:01 AM on December 7, 2007

Arsenic contaminated water in Bangladesh has been discussed by numerous scientists and it is known to come from a number of sources, including the use of pesticides and fertilisers with arsenic in them, "Arsenic was one of the primary ingredients in pesticides before synthetic organic pesticides were available".

One tragic aspect is that a humanitarian Western organization, UNICEF, set out to help and accidentally ended up poisoning many millions:

It began in the 1970's, when the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) initiated the construction of millions of tube-wells with the aim of providing Bangladeshis with clean and safe drinking water - an alternative to the surface water contaminated with diarrhea-causing bacteria that killed a quarter of a million Bangladeshi children each year. But as the tube-wells eliminated one problem, they, in turn, brought about a new tragedy of unimagined proportions. Arsenic-contaminated water from the wells started poisoning millions, bewildering the scientists trying to understand how the poisoning works as well as how to control it. Meanwhile, the 8 to 12 million contaminated wells across the country continue to be the main source of water for most Bangladeshis, presenting a growing danger to their lives. The scope of the calamity has drawn worldwide concern and triggered a broad effort to remedy the problem.
posted by nickyskye at 10:32 AM on December 7, 2007

A really great resource on arsenic in Bangladesh can be found here (warning, very very web 1.0). He has some links to projects that are trying to help, mainly by simply digging deeper wells, ones that go past the arsenic contamination. (Links here and here. The first link has some links that are NSF lunch, be warned.) It's a petty easy problem to help fix, it simply requires the money to get these wells dug. From his website, it looks like about 30 million people in Bangladesh are drinking contaminated water.
/plug

(Disclaimer, I worked for this guy one summer, although not on this. I think that this project is one of the best things I've ever seen a member of academia get involved with.)
posted by Hactar at 10:47 AM on December 7, 2007

I'm pretty sure mustard oil is carcinogenic.
posted by electroboy at 11:57 AM on December 7, 2007

I think this is the article that the poster was linking to. Not particularly compelling.
posted by electroboy at 12:11 PM on December 7, 2007

electroboy, I differ with you and think the Vandana Shiva article you linked to was excellent, intensely compelling and am curious about your opinion. Vandana Shiva is Director of the Research foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, in New Delhi, India. She is also a writer, lecturer and prominent environmental activist. This is not some flaky person writing about this but an internationally respected author and scientist.

Not having the main cooking oil, traditional in Bangladesh (Population: 150,448,339) is a big deal.

If olive oil in Italy (Population: 58,147,733) were suddenly found to be adulterated with poison and Monsanto's whatever oil touted as what it would be replaced with, especially oil that was unsellable in any other Western country, there would be a huge uproar.

It seems suspicion about the conspiracy in Bangladesh was, in part, based on the following:

The popular, and disturbing, view was that responsibility lay with the multinational corporations who were desperately seeking to export their soyabeans to India. What made this thesis more credible was the fact that although the United States government had imposed trade sanctions on India in May 1998 to penalise the country for undertaking nuclear tests in defiance of US demands, an exception was suddenly made for the export of agricultural commodities. This is unlikely to have been a purely spontaneous gesture -- it is much more likely that it was a response to heavy lobbying on the part of the multinationals.
posted by nickyskye at 2:23 PM on December 7, 2007

Lobbying by multinationals or the fact that the moment you start using food as a weapon to get your way on the international stage you pretty much look like Reich 3.5.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:23 PM on December 7, 2007

That's a bit of an odd name to give a website about Bangladesh.
and hey, my country :)
posted by divabat at 11:11 PM on December 7, 2007

Hi dear divabat, nice to know you're Bangladeshi.

Yes, it is a strange name and that's what caught my attention when I was surfing for a Bengali recipe. The site is packed with good information and pictures of the country. It's certainly one of the best sites I've seen about Bangladesh and written in a straightforward, personal way.

Naturally, because of the poisoning of between 85 and 125 million people with arsenic in the water and the scam with Monsanto, the multinationals and mustard oil in Bangladesh I think that has become a large focus of his site. Imo, it's commendable.

Are there other sites about Bangladesh that you recommend?
posted by nickyskye at 6:59 AM on December 8, 2007

Well, the article is built on innuendo and unverifiable claims. It's all well and good to believe in an international conspiracy, but epidemic dropsy from argemone contaminated mustard seed oil has been happening in India and Bangladesh for over a hundred years.
posted by electroboy at 1:22 PM on December 10, 2007

electroboy, you must be joking.

The argemone contaminated mustard oil "epidemic" in 1998 at New Delhi, India is the largest so far, in which over 60 persons lost their lives and more than 3000 victims were hospitalized.

The death by arsemic contaminated water is between 85 and 125 million in Bangladesh.

It's interesting you should snark about this article in light of your own interests in Junction Station, which "is infamous for heavy metals and toxic soil conditions."

1. Vandana Shiva includes verifiable citations in her article and it is not remotely based on innuendo. She is a highly respected, world renowned scientist and environmentalist.

2. Having lived in India I was impressed that there were easily accessible, open markets for the people who wished to adulterate food. There were small white rocks or dried maggots for sale, which unethical grocery store owners or food produce vendors could mix with rice, for example or syringes to inject water into paraffin candles to make them heavier, since the rice and candles are sold by the weight. That was a small scale conspiracy. People who made, collected and sold the adulteration materials, vendors selling this stuff to mix in with food and the food sellers willing to participate in this corruption, not to mention the government looking the other way. A larger scale collaboration to dump inedible oil from the West on Bangladesh or pesticide/fertilizer with arsenic that ends up contaminating the Bangladeshi water table is not at all a stretch.
posted by nickyskye at 11:43 PM on December 10, 2007

She is a highly respected, world renowned scientist and environmentalist.

Physicist, not a biologist, not a food chemist. Which means she has exactly zero specialization in the area she's claiming to be an expert. Be wary of scientists that work outside their field of specialization. Additionally, there are no citations in the article I linked to. There just aren't.

The death by arsemic contaminated water is between 85 and 125 million in Bangladesh.

Irrelevant. I didn't make any statement about the arsenic contamination.

It's interesting you should snark about this article in light of your own interests in Junction Station, which "is infamous for heavy metals and toxic soil conditions."

Um, what? My interests in Junction Station? What the hell are you talking about?

I was impressed that there were easily accessible, open markets for the people who wished to adulterate food.

So what you're saying is that adulteration is common and, in fact, the oil is not safe. Also, the imported oil is not inedible, it is genetically modified. Look, I can point out the flaws in the conspiracy argument all day, but it's not going to get us anywhere. The short version is:

1. Contamination either accidental or intentional is common in India.
2. Mustard oil in general is not safe, due to high levels of erucic acid.
3. The imported oil is safe.
4. You are a crackpot.
posted by electroboy at 7:49 AM on December 11, 2007

Speaking with contempt does not increase the validity of your argument, nor does it enhance your character. It only reveals that when you are unable to back up what you are saying you resort to ad hominem attack.

A civil disagreement is not such a hard thing to achieve.

This post is about Bangladesh, so I'd like to keep that as the focus but yes, contamination either accidental or intentional is common in India and Bangladesh and I've seen it with my own eyes. It is a conspiracy of people who collaborate in the existence and sale of adulterated food. I see nothing wrong with using that word, conspiracy, when it is appropriate and reality based.

You seem to want this to be an academic article with science citations, written for the academic community. It isn't. It's an article written for the non academic community by a scientist. She doesn't offer citations, she cites others. If there is something you think that is not true or that she fabricated, please specify.

Vandana Shiva cites the Health Minister of India, who stated that the tragedy could only have been the product of a conspiracy. She makes her points based on what has been documented, such as: "What made this thesis more credible was the fact that although the United States government had imposed trade sanctions on India in May 1998 to penalise the country for undertaking nuclear tests in defiance of US demands, an exception was suddenly made for the export of agricultural commodities. This is unlikely to have been a purely spontaneous gesture -- it is much more likely that it was a response to heavy lobbying on the part of the multinationals."

Or this bombshell: "The problem was particularly serious given that by 1998 some 18 million acres in the US had been planted with genetically engineered `Round-up Ready' soyabeans, which were specifically designed to create a growing demand for Round-up -- the world's best-selling herbicide, produced by Monsanto Corporation. How to get rid of all this increasingly unsaleable produce? The answer could be to dump it on the Third World, in countries such as India, where the public had not yet been alerted to the possible dangers of GM crops."

She knows the scientific thinking process and she's an environmentalist and a political activist. Scientists can discuss topics out of the arena of their specific field and still be accurate, authoritative, insightful and intelligent in doing so. In Ms. Shiva's case, she is not only a physicist but she also "went on to interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore." In addition to that: "Intellectual property rights, biodiversity, biotechnology, bioethics, genetic engineering are among the fields where Shiva has contributed".

If mustard seed oil has its drawbacks, so does soybean oil. According to Ms. Shiva's article: "in any case soyabean products, by their very nature, contain a number of toxic substances at concentration levels which pose significant health risks to humans and animals. They contain trypsin inhibitors, which inhibit the pancreatic proteases of animals, causing an increase in pancreatic size and weight and proliferation of pancreatic acinar cells. The stress on the body due to an overactive pancreas leads to growth depression, and can also lead to pancreatic cancer. Soyabeans contain lectins, some toxic, which bind with simple and complex carbohydrates, and can interfere with the microbiology of the gut and with the proper functioning of the immune system."

Wikipedia says about mustard oil, ..."for North Indians, mustard oil is not just a cooking medium but it is very much intricately interwoven with their culture. They have been using it for ages and dispute that there is enough evidence for the toxicity of erucic acid, instead maintaining that mustard oil is beneficial to human health because of its low content of saturated fats, ideal ratio of omega-3 and omega 6 fatty acids (15g of omega 3 fats per 100g serve), content of antioxidants and vitamin E, as well as the fact that it is cold pressed (extracted at 45-50 degrees Celsius)."

The death by arsenic contaminated water is between 85 and 125 million in Bangladesh.

Irrelevant. I didn't make any statement about the arsenic contamination.

It is relevant because this post was not just about what you said.

It is not about a few thousand people made temporarily ill with dropsy, it's about the tens of millions of Banglasheshis being poisoned by arsenic -brought about largely by accident by UNICEF and the arsenic in Western pesticides and fertilizers. The people of Bangladesh have every logical reason to have doubts about Western products, Western technology and Western intentions towards their country, since 125 million poisoned people's lives are at present endangered by Western so-called 'scientific contributions' to them.

It's also relevant because the nationally preferred cooking oil in Bangladesh is being/has been forcibly taken away from them and some inedible soybean oil foisted upon them by an evil company, Monsanto with a well documented, long and ugly track record.

Um, what? My interests in Junction Station? What the hell are you talking about?

Your MeFite profile lists you as being ericdymond. Putting that into google it links to edymond and info re Junction Station and toxic soil conditions. I guess that's another Eric Dymond.

What I'm saying is that people can and do conspire to adulterate food and/or sell inferior foodstuffs to unsuspecting people, on a small scale and on the multinational scale. I don't think Western countries have/had a right to step into Bangladesh, take away their national cooking oil, forbid them to use it and force/bully them into buying inferior/contaminated oil from Monsanto. And if 125 million people were poisoned by arsenic contaminated water from UNICEF wells, shouldn't there be an international stepping up to remedy the results of this act by UNICEF? This is all said in the original site linked and I think it makes sane and good points.
posted by nickyskye at 2:55 PM on December 11, 2007

This conversation is over. Googlestalking me is inappropriate.
posted by electroboy at 2:42 PM on December 12, 2007

omg, "Googlestalking". ROFL. Puhleeez. Your email address -now deleted- was in your MeFi profile for all the world to see. What abject paranoia. Talk about crackpot. yikes.
posted by nickyskye at 4:34 PM on December 12, 2007

And this "conversation is over"? This is not a private conversation, it's a thread of discussion about the post linked and available to the 60,000+ members here. You're in the wrong place for that kind of bullying and MeTa will put you straight.
posted by nickyskye at 4:44 PM on December 12, 2007