Food — an essential element for human survival — has turned into a silent killer in Bangladesh.
Rampant adulteration in almost every segment of the food chain is putting tens of lakhs of people at risk of deadly diseases, disabilities, and premature deaths.
Recent laboratory findings by the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority exposed the alarming extent of the problem.
Of the 15 bread samples tested — bread is one of the country’s most commonly eaten items — 11 were found to contain potassium bromate, a banned chemical identified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.
The compound, used illegally to improve dough texture and loaf volume, can cause cancer and kidney damage due to prolonged exposure.
Between July and November 2024, the Food Safety Authority tested 450 food samples and identified 90 as harmful because of various forms of adulteration.
Officials said that toxic and low-grade substances are routinely mixed in food to enhance colour, taste, shelf life, and eventually the profit.
‘Adulterated food has become a chronic public health threat in Bangladesh due to the indifference of the authorities,’ said Professor Syed Abdul Hamid, a health economist at Dhaka University.
‘Food is next to oxygen for human life, but the food we eat for nourishment is now pushing us toward sickness and death,’ he said.
According to Hamid, while there is no comprehensive study on the economic burden of food adulteration, every family is paying a heavy price for the authorities’ failure to enforce food safety laws.
Two recent BFSA studies — one on fruits and the other on vegetables — found alarming levels of lead, chromium, and cadmium, along with pesticide residues, in commonly consumed fruits and vegetables across Bangladesh.
Earlier, laboratory tests by the icddr,b in 2018 revealed that 72 per cent of milk samples contained coliform bacteria while 57 per cent contained faecal coliform bacteria — both responsible for diarrhoeal diseases and even deaths in children.
Over the years, multiple studies have detected hazardous chemicals such as formalin, calcium carbide, textile dyes, lead, chromium, arsenic, urea, and mercury in milk, fish, vegetables, fruits, sweets, and oils.
‘These substances have carcinogenic, clastogenic, and genotoxic properties,’ said Dr Rashid E Mahbub, a public health expert and a former president of the Bangladesh Medical Association.
‘People take food for nutrition and growth, but instead they suffer from diarrhoea, typhoid, diabetes, kidney and liver damage, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer,’ he said.
The WHO estimates that non-communicable diseases account for 67 per cent of all deaths in Bangladesh, with nearly one in five people at risk of dying from an NCD between ages 30 and 70.
Around 90,000 to one lakh new cancer cases are reported every year in the country. Nearly 1.31 crore people live with diabetes. About 10–12 lakh suffer from kidney disease, while 20–22 per cent of the population has some form of heart disease.
Public health specialists increasingly link these conditions to long-term exposure to adulterated and chemically contaminated food.
Heavy metals such as lead and chromium are known to cause respiratory distress, throat cancer, kidney and liver damage, neural disorders, and developmental delay in children.
Other toxic substances trigger hypertension, skin lesions, and cardiovascular complications.
‘Food adulteration is feeding an epidemic of NCDs silently,’ said Dr Mahbub. ‘It is a national health emergency in disguise.’
Rights activists argue that access to safe food is not just a health issue — it is a constitutional right.
Article 15(a) and Article 18(1) of Bangladesh’s Constitution affirm the state’s obligation to ensure adequate and safe food for all citizens, echoing Article 25(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Despite this constitutional obligation, multiple agencies — the BFSA, the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution, and the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection — have failed to effectively enforce food safety standards.
‘None of these agencies are working in a coordinated or proactive way,’ said SM Nazer Hossain, vice-president of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh.
‘In many cases, businesses manage to find new ways to adulterate food due to lack of monitoring and enforcement,’ he added.
In 2019, the BSTI tested 406 food products and found 52 of them substandard, prompting a writ petition by Palash Mahmud, executive director of the Conscious Consumers Society.
The High Court later ordered the government to withdraw the unsafe items from the market and ensure safe food for all.
‘But agencies are hiding rather than acting against the culprits,’ said Palash. ‘We have laws, but no enforcement.’
Officials admit that the enforcement system is under a severe strain. BFSA chairman Md Zakaria said that the agency operated with limited manpower and resources.
‘There are genuine cases of adulteration, but also a lot of misinformation circulating on social media,’ he said.
‘We are prioritising public awareness rather than punishment, because safe food is a collective goal,’ he said.
However, food safety activists and inspectors disagree that awareness alone can solve the problem.
They say that adulteration is largely driven by economic motives — to boost colour, texture, weight, and shelf life for a greater profit.
For instance, widely used benzoyl peroxide, a bleaching agent used to whiten flour and breads, can cause liver damage and increase cancer risk.
Similarly, textile dyes are illegally used to brighten vegetables such as pointed gourd and peas, and in sweetmeats and fried street foods.
Experts say that nearly every common food item on the Bangladesh market can be adulterated. These include fruits, vegetables, milk, fish, sweetmeats, rice, wheat, oil, ghee, spices, soft drinks, juice powder, and even baby food.
Some adulteration occurs indirectly through soil, air, or water contamination, as toxic particles enter the ecosystem due to prolonged industrial misuse.
The long-term consequences are severe — ranging from gastrointestinal disorders and cancer to irreversible organ damage.
‘What is happening is slow poisoning,’ said Dr Mahbub. ‘People don’t fall sick immediately, but the toxins accumulate and destroy their systems over time.’
Despite repeated court directives and public outcry, Bangladesh continues to lack an effective monitoring system for food quality.
The High Court in 2018 ordered the formation of an independent expert committee to investigate the marketing of unsafe pasteurised milk, but implementation remains uncertain.
Food adulteration, experts warn, is not just a law-and-order issue — it is a public health catastrophe. Every contaminated meal adds to the nation’s disease burden, pushing families towards poverty due to escalating healthcare costs.
Professor Hamid of Dhaka University summed it up starkly: ‘The diversity, frequency, and intensity of sickness in our country are rising because what we eat is no longer food — it is a slow-acting toxin.’
He and other experts called for strong and effective coordination among enforcement agencies and harsher penalties for offenders, in addition to nationwide awareness campaigns.
‘Adulterated food is undermining the country’s human capital,’ said Mahbub, adding that safe food is not a privilege but a basic right, and it must be treated as a public health priority.
