VEGGIES ON STEROIDS are softly killing you
Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui | TNN Lucknow: Starting from the biology text books in Class V up to the lessons in Baba Ramdev’s yoga classes that one takes up after retirement, the health benefits of consuming green vegetables as staple diet hardly find a contradiction. But not any longer. Today, eating vegetables may cause nervous breakdowns, sterility and neurotic complications. In isolation, the statement may sound absurd. But it is true. Petty farmers by the countryside are blatantly using hormone shots to expedite growth of their vegetables. The disturbing part is that these hormones may cause irreparable damage to our health, if taken through these vegetables over a period of time. The even more shocking element is that the authorities are aware of the malpractice, but hardly anyone seems to be bothered. Ironically, the most commonly available and readily used hormone is a Schedule H drug banned in India for use on animals, leave alone vegetables. Known as Oxytocin in the medical world, in local parlance it has got many names starting from ‘cocin’ and ‘paani’ to ‘dawai’ and is available at almost all the general stores in the bylanes of the countryside. Originating from a Greek word meaning quick birth, Oxytocin is a mammalian hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. Hormone is used clinically to help begin or to continue labour, to control bleeding following delivery, and to stimulate the secretion of breast milk. Oxytocin was first synthesised (along with the related anti-diuretic hormone or ADH) by Vincent du Vigneaud in 1953, who got a Nobel Prize in 1955 for this work. Researches have proved that the indiscriminate use of oxytocin injections by farmers has been causing health hazards. The oxytocin injection which costs only fifty paise is invariably administered to pregnant milch cattle for easy delivery. Having multifarious qualities, Oxytocin is being used by the fruit and vegetable growers, who administer oxytocin to the plants and climbers which grow more fast and get ready for delivery. These injections are being administered to pumpkin, watermelon, brinjal and cucumber. Such vegetables and fruits are then sold in the open market. For humans it costs Rs 15 an ampoule. On the black market it costs 50 paise. The drug is so cheap and readily available and the implementation of the ban is so lax that it is used by every dairy. If you don’t believe this, visit your local dairy and ask about the drug. Even the illiterate milkman knows the name Oxytocin. According to some leading chemists in Lucknow, there is only one importer of the drug in the country based at Mumbai and the drug is required to be sold in glass ampoules only. But innumerable tin-shed factories are believed to be working overtime to produce the ampoules in cheap plastic packaging — an ampoule like small tube sealed by pressing its open end between hot steel clips. * DRUG OFFENCE *Using Oxytocin for non-clinical purposes is a crime. Oxytocin-H category drugs may not be injected to animals for lactation or to vegetables for purposes whatsoever as it is a cognizable crime under Section 12 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 (PCAA), Food and Consumables Substances Adulteration Act (FCSA) and the Drug Control Act (DCA). * LEGAL ANGLE *As per Section 12 of the PCAA read with Section 29 of the same Act, the animals on which the Oxytocin operation was preformed shall be forfeited to the government. As per the FCSA and the DCA provisions, a chemist selling it can lose his licence, any shopkeeper can go to jail for 5 years and so can the farmer and dairy owner using it. * OFFICIAL APATHY AT EXTREME * On July 27 last year, health department officials recovered huge quantities of oxytocin injections during a raid at a factory premises on Sultanpur Road and recovered several lakhs of Oxytocin injections The raid was conducted under the direct supervision of the district magistrate Chandra Bhanu and chief medical officer Dr A K Shukla Both the officers are still present at their respective posts but have not found it important enough to launch a similar drive to check production and sale of the poison in ampoules --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
