This question has been pricking my conscience since the day my closest colleague, who was in his early forties and who was fit as a fiddle succumbed to colon cancer suddenly. The sight of him being reduced to a breathing skeleton and withering away in front of our eyes while silently enduring agonising pain for three years is still a fresh wound in our hearts.
This sorrow turned into alarm when within the past month, I heard that three more of my colleagues in my small department were facing similar situations, with one’s mother being diagnosed with cancer while young wives of two others having fallen victim to this devastating disease.
It seems cancer has reached epidemic proportions in Sri Lanka with a new case being spoken about among our associates almost every single day .It would not be an over exaggeration to say cancer is as common as a regular cold now.
Although it may have more than one cause, the food that we eat these days is full of synthetic food additives and toxic agro chemicals used haphazardly. Chemicals are used to artificially ripen the fruits. There is hardly food on your plate nowadays which is free of toxins.
The tomatoes and the green chillies on the market-shelf, is a perfect example for the excessive use of agro chemicals. A closer look at these products on the shelf will reveal a thin powder coating, evidence of the use of pest control chemicals‘ just before the harvest’ , something which is strictly banned by law.
Food additives too are a factor of concern. Officials have done a great job to ensure the laws on food additives and preservatives in Sri Lanka are perfect to protect the consumers. The Food Act No. 20 of 1980 has been amended 30 times to make it flawless.
Another amendment to include eight more permitted food preservatives to the already existing list is currently in the making. Some of the previously permitted preservatives have been taken off the list after reviewing their potential danger.
Once this new law is passed, the Food Control Administration Unit of the Ministry of Health will publish in clear terms the new preservatives that can be used in Sri Lanka along with the limitations on their use, for example, the proportions that needs to be adhered to. “We will be sending the amendment to the Legal Draftsman shortly,” Assistant Director S. T. Abuthali told the Sunday Observer.
WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), together are responsible for assessing the risks to human health from food additives. Risk assessment of food additives is conducted by an independent, international expert scientific group. This is called the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA).
Sri Lanka’s Food Control Administration Unit, under the Health Ministry allows only the JECFA sanctioned food additives to be used in the country.
“We have permitted only a selective number of additives from the JECFA list, hence not all of those approved can be used here,” Assistant Director Abuthali said.
At present only 14 preservatives are allowed to be used in consumer goods here. There is no specific regulation on thickeners, stabilisers and emulsifiers as they are considered low risk but there are strict regulations on sweeteners, colouring agents and flavour enhancers (currently only three flavour enhancers are permitted in Sri Lanka)
But the Food Control Administration Unit is only responsible for laying down the law, the implementation mechanism lies with the Medical Officiers of Health under whom the Food and Drug Inspectors and Public Health Inspectors operate. According to officials, Sri Lanka lacks facilities to test most of the artificial additives in food and ensure if they confirm with the local standards.
“Our laboratories can test the preservatives and colouring agents, to identify them and quantify their limits, but testing the prevalence of MSG and flavor enhancers is something beyond us,” Colombo Municipal Council’s (CMC) Chief Annalyst Dr.Rajanayake confided. He is a qualified toxicologist, a food scientist and a chemist.
Dr. Rajanayake said the imported food products requires a certificate of conformity for Customs clearance but the small scale importers who bring down food items without declaring for commercial purposes could bypass these regulations and non certified food products could enter the local market undetected.
“Our duty is mainly confined to raiding substandard food outlets, using rotten veggies, meat and other unsuitable food. People have limited awareness and little concern over food additives and their potential danger, “ CMC’s Chief Food Inspector Lal Kumara said, adding that they hardly get such complaints.
It is known that the physical impact of the additives over long term is yet to be fully studied even by Western countries. The danger is that even permitted additives can be harmful if used excessively. The preservatives are used to increase the shelf life of food and maintain quality for a longer time. The natural sources used for this purpose in the past included sugar (to preserve fruits) and salt (fish).
But of late these traditional preservatives have been replaced by harmful synthetics. A host of food preservatives, flavour enhancers, emulcifiers, sweetners and colouring, glacing and bleaching agents are used on daily consumables. The officers said practical issues overshadow efforts to regulate this sector. However, this cannot be made an excuse. The situation is petrifying because most of these synthetic additives can trigger cancer.
In other countries, people have a choice between food with preservatives (which has a longer shelf life) and food without them but in Sri Lanka, that choice is almost zero.The food that is most popular among the kids, like instant noodles, sausages, soups, bakery products and processed cheese and meats are full of harmful chemicals, whether it is in permitted form or not.
“How often these products are put under the microscope for random testing to ensure if they keep to the regulations and standards are not really known,” Deputy Director National Cancer Control Program and Community Specialist Dr.Suraj Perera said.
He said it is best to avoid processed food as much as possible and embrace healthy dietary habits to keep cancer at bay. It is not clinically proven yet if the increased cancer cases were in fact directly related to food additives. But that is not to say they are safe to consume either.
A simple comparison of packaged food labels will show you that such products available in the Sri Lankan market contain a high number of additives whereas labels of similar food products from Australia, US and the UK markets show a minimum number of such synthetics. Undoubtedly, the officials said that the facilities must be improved in Sri Lanka to test synthetic additives in food and the monitoring mechanism needs constant updating.
Sri Lanka has a free healthcare system and as much as it is a family concern to stay healthy, the Government too spends billions each year to cure the millions who fall ill. With new relief measures to remove limitations on cancer drugs by the Health Minister recently, the burden of free cancer treatment on the Government has shot up.
The closing of loopholes in the food regulatory mechanism is long overdue and must be done once and for all. It will certainly contribute to lessen the number of unfortunate and untimely deaths in a major way.
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 Dr.Sameera R Samarakoon,
Lecturer, Institute of Biochemistry Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Colombo
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“An enormous increase has been shown in the use of food additives in the last decade arising lots of controversies. It has been estimated that a person consumes an average of 8 – 10 lbs of food additives per year, with a possibility of some consuming even more. The real danger of food additivesis that, no one exactly knows their collective dangers. Although there are hundreds of FDA approved additives, only a few clinical studies have shown the safety for human consumption and are inadequate to assess the degree of risk. On the other hand no studies have looked at the dose related effects of permitted drugs. There is a huge possibility that, low quantities of multiple additives in foods, with prolonged use over years, could accumulate in the body and increase the risks. Scientific data shows several possible health issues linked with the consumption of additives, including: cancers, asthma and allergic reactions, bowel symptoms, preterm delivery, hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder in children, human resistance to antibiotics, headaches, heart disease, weight gain and neurological problems. As a requirement, the approved food additives are listed on the product label, along with other ingredients. However, some manufacturers often mislabel or disguise banned additives as ‘flavourings’, ‘spices’ or ‘natural flavours’. E.g. MSG
The FDA (USA) has banned seven cancer-causing food ddditives found in popular foods. These food additives are most commonly used to enhance the flavour of baked goods, ice cream, candy, chewing gum and beverages. The newly banned flavours are benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, eugenyl methyl ether, myrcene, pulegone, pyridine and styrene.”