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I'm put off by how this is framed as a detective story. Pesticides that contain heavy metals and other carcinogens are a well known issue, with India (and South

I'm put off by how this is framed as a detective story. Pesticides that contain heavy metals and other carcinogens are a well known issue, with India (and South Asia more generally) being the worst affected. > You'll never guess the culprit Not knowing about turmeric comes off as deeply ignorant when a billion people consume it as part of their daily diet. > They don't know that this is harmful for human health Let me assure you that they absolutely do and they couldn't care less. This also makes it seem like poor clueless farmers are to blame while mega-corporations that process, package, market and distribute these spices are never given even a passing mention!

rayiner 1y ago
Of course they know. But human life has very little value in Bangladesh. You’re socialized to desensitize yourself to it.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- kragen 1y ago
  Your family is from Bangladesh, aren't they?
  - rayiner 1y ago
    Yes. I lived there until I was five. Even at that age you learn not to see other people as human. You kind of have to—people do things like cut off kids’ hands to make them more effective at begging.[1] You walk through the street with amputees coming up to you. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.randeepramesh https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.randeepr...
    - kragen 1y ago
      That seems like important context for your comment above, which otherwise people might read as akin to Churchill's dismissal of Gandhi as a "naked fakir".
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
londons_explore 1y ago
Heavy metals are so easy and cheap to test for that every distributor should be testing every batch, and calling the police if contamination is detected.
- kragen 1y ago
  The X-ray fluorescence tests used in the market spectacle described in the article are very cheap and easy, but they require equipment that is very expensive from the perspective of your average Bangladesh greengrocer. There are other easy and cheap tests for heavy metals that don't require such expensive equipment, but they only work if the metal ions are water-soluble, which lead chromate isn't.
  - londons_explore 1y ago
    It would be super cheap to pop a teaspoon in an envelope and post it to a government test lab who has an xrf gun...
    - kragen 1y ago
      Yeah, and probably in, say, Switzerland that's exactly what people would do if they had this problem. But here in Argentina, for example, a friend of mine had his house raided by the police because he revealed that the voting machines the country was planning to adopt were flawed and vulnerable to falsified election results. And in the US right now immigrants are getting arrested and deported if they show up to their court hearings to decide whether they should be deported. And you probably remember that, during the covid pandemic, the US government was prohibiting labs from telling people whether their covid tests were positive or negative. So probably this isn't a full replacement for being able to do your own tests.
      - gowld 1y ago
        > the US government was prohibiting labs from telling people whether their covid tests were positive or negative. Are you referring to unvetted experimental tests, or something else? https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-testing-cdc-fda-red-tape-invs#:~:text=When%20the%20CDC%20stumbled%20out,US%20Food%20and%20Drug%20Administration. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-testing-...
offnominal 1y ago
I quite enjoyed it. You're in a different part of the world and only have access to lead level data from your local population. You spot an anomaly in a cultural subgroup. Then through extensive guesswork you pinpoint a cause to a specific additive to a spice often consumed by folks in this culture. I would say that qualifies as a detective story. But anyway, lead chromate is not a pesticide. The level of harm from pesticides containing heavy metals vs lead chromate is different. You're probably much much less likely to see lead poisoning levels in your blood just by consuming food treated only with pesticides.
- ujkiolp 1y ago
  I quite hated it. Very poorly written article with no greys
kragen 1y ago
This isn't about pesticides, and it isn't about not knowing about turmeric; it's about lead chromate, which is not a pesticide, but a pigment, and is not normally a part of turmeric. Moreover, though some of the contaminated turmeric was contaminated by mega-corporations, much of it was not.
Aloisius 1y ago
Em, because it was the farmers who were painting their turmeric with lead paint to make their whole turmeric look more appealing, not "mega-corporations."
wlesieutre 1y ago
The article specifically rules out lead from pesticides > Perhaps the lead came from agricultural pesticides? "We sampled hundreds of agrochemicals. Did not find lead in them," Forsyth says. Lead chromate was deliberately added after harvesting to make it more yellow
maxerickson 1y ago
Uh, the culprit isn't turmeric, it's lead chromate that farmers were putting on turmeric. For most readers of English, it is not an expected fact that someone would be intentionally adding lead to food. In the article, the turmeric related lead poisonings were due to turmeric bought at Bangladeshi markets, not processed, packaged spices bought from a grocer.
- in_cahoots 1y ago
  But for anyone who knows the Bangladeshi community this isn't a surprise at all. Neither the source nor the way it wakes its way into immigrants diets. Every time my Bengali friends visit Bangladesh they take an empty suitcase to fill with spices, sweets, and the like. The adulteration has been going on for decades. I feel like the article should have been written from that perspective- an outsider discovering how a different community operates and polices itself- instead of from the perspective of some Western saviors uncovering a new problem.
  - rahimnathwani 1y ago
    Eh? Adulteration has been going on for decades, yet your friends deliberately pack light so they can bring back those contaminated spices?
    - in_cahoots 1y ago
      Cognitive dissonance is a thing, yes. Would you also be surprised to know that some Americans smoke and don't use seatbelts? Not every immigrant is a twenty something working on a Masters degree or working in the tech industry. Most of the Bengalis I know, especially in the NYC area, are here by sheer luck and determination moreso than formal education. The older ones have survived famine, cyclones, and literal genocide. At that point, trying to convince someone that their favorite spices or sweets that they grew up with for 40+ years may be harmful is pretty difficult. If anything, getting to know the immigrant community has been enlightening in pointing out my own biases. It's easy to point the finger at someone else because they're a fish out of water. But put me in a different culture (or really just let time pass with the attendant changes in culture and technology) and the same thing would be true for me.
in_cahoots 1y ago
I asked my Bengali friend, who grew up in a lower-class family in rural Bangladesh. This is something he learned about in schools in the 90's. The test isn't easily available, but it's not like this is a surprise to the Bangladeshi community. The analogy would be if someone came to the US, found salmonella on some produce, and wrote some breathless article about how they found the 'culprit'. This is business as usual masquerading as a longform news piece.
kurthr 1y ago
I'm from the US, but I at least vaguely follow food safety. The idea that this poisoning was a surprise is bizarre. It was the absolute first thing I thought of. It is the most common form of corruption. Similar thing just exploded in china with a red dye for children's school food. Like EV olive oil, salmon, and honey a majority of the food is adulterated. You just hope that it's non-toxic. The real issue is a complete lack of testing or regulation, and I fear soon a loss of "rule of law" in the US. I mean if you bought the right person and airplane or some meme-coin, I'm pretty sure you could sell melamine in baby formula or lead paint in junk food, and it would be blamed on "those damn furriners"!

rayiner 1y ago

Of course they know. But human life has very little value in Bangladesh. You’re socialized to desensitize yourself to it.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kragen 1y ago
Your family is from Bangladesh, aren't they?
- rayiner 1y ago
  Yes. I lived there until I was five. Even at that age you learn not to see other people as human. You kind of have to—people do things like cut off kids’ hands to make them more effective at begging.[1] You walk through the street with amputees coming up to you. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.randeepramesh https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/31/india.randeepr...
  - kragen 1y ago
    That seems like important context for your comment above, which otherwise people might read as akin to Churchill's dismissal of Gandhi as a "naked fakir".
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

londons_explore 1y ago

Heavy metals are so easy and cheap to test for that every distributor should be testing every batch, and calling the police if contamination is detected.

kragen 1y ago
The X-ray fluorescence tests used in the market spectacle described in the article are very cheap and easy, but they require equipment that is very expensive from the perspective of your average Bangladesh greengrocer. There are other easy and cheap tests for heavy metals that don't require such expensive equipment, but they only work if the metal ions are water-soluble, which lead chromate isn't.
- londons_explore 1y ago
  It would be super cheap to pop a teaspoon in an envelope and post it to a government test lab who has an xrf gun...
  - kragen 1y ago
    Yeah, and probably in, say, Switzerland that's exactly what people would do if they had this problem. But here in Argentina, for example, a friend of mine had his house raided by the police because he revealed that the voting machines the country was planning to adopt were flawed and vulnerable to falsified election results. And in the US right now immigrants are getting arrested and deported if they show up to their court hearings to decide whether they should be deported. And you probably remember that, during the covid pandemic, the US government was prohibiting labs from telling people whether their covid tests were positive or negative. So probably this isn't a full replacement for being able to do your own tests.
    - gowld 1y ago
      > the US government was prohibiting labs from telling people whether their covid tests were positive or negative. Are you referring to unvetted experimental tests, or something else? https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-testing-cdc-fda-red-tape-invs#:~:text=When%20the%20CDC%20stumbled%20out,US%20Food%20and%20Drug%20Administration. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-testing-...

offnominal 1y ago

I quite enjoyed it. You're in a different part of the world and only have access to lead level data from your local population. You spot an anomaly in a cultural subgroup. Then through extensive guesswork you pinpoint a cause to a specific additive to a spice often consumed by folks in this culture. I would say that qualifies as a detective story. But anyway, lead chromate is not a pesticide. The level of harm from pesticides containing heavy metals vs lead chromate is different. You're probably much much less likely to see lead poisoning levels in your blood just by consuming food treated only with pesticides.

ujkiolp 1y ago
I quite hated it. Very poorly written article with no greys

kragen 1y ago

This isn't about pesticides, and it isn't about not knowing about turmeric; it's about lead chromate, which is not a pesticide, but a pigment, and is not normally a part of turmeric. Moreover, though some of the contaminated turmeric was contaminated by mega-corporations, much of it was not.

Aloisius 1y ago

Em, because it was the farmers who were painting their turmeric with lead paint to make their whole turmeric look more appealing, not "mega-corporations."

wlesieutre 1y ago

The article specifically rules out lead from pesticides > Perhaps the lead came from agricultural pesticides? "We sampled hundreds of agrochemicals. Did not find lead in them," Forsyth says. Lead chromate was deliberately added after harvesting to make it more yellow

maxerickson 1y ago

Uh, the culprit isn't turmeric, it's lead chromate that farmers were putting on turmeric. For most readers of English, it is not an expected fact that someone would be intentionally adding lead to food. In the article, the turmeric related lead poisonings were due to turmeric bought at Bangladeshi markets, not processed, packaged spices bought from a grocer.

in_cahoots 1y ago
But for anyone who knows the Bangladeshi community this isn't a surprise at all. Neither the source nor the way it wakes its way into immigrants diets. Every time my Bengali friends visit Bangladesh they take an empty suitcase to fill with spices, sweets, and the like. The adulteration has been going on for decades. I feel like the article should have been written from that perspective- an outsider discovering how a different community operates and polices itself- instead of from the perspective of some Western saviors uncovering a new problem.
- rahimnathwani 1y ago
  Eh? Adulteration has been going on for decades, yet your friends deliberately pack light so they can bring back those contaminated spices?
  - in_cahoots 1y ago
    Cognitive dissonance is a thing, yes. Would you also be surprised to know that some Americans smoke and don't use seatbelts? Not every immigrant is a twenty something working on a Masters degree or working in the tech industry. Most of the Bengalis I know, especially in the NYC area, are here by sheer luck and determination moreso than formal education. The older ones have survived famine, cyclones, and literal genocide. At that point, trying to convince someone that their favorite spices or sweets that they grew up with for 40+ years may be harmful is pretty difficult. If anything, getting to know the immigrant community has been enlightening in pointing out my own biases. It's easy to point the finger at someone else because they're a fish out of water. But put me in a different culture (or really just let time pass with the attendant changes in culture and technology) and the same thing would be true for me.

in_cahoots 1y ago

I asked my Bengali friend, who grew up in a lower-class family in rural Bangladesh. This is something he learned about in schools in the 90's. The test isn't easily available, but it's not like this is a surprise to the Bangladeshi community. The analogy would be if someone came to the US, found salmonella on some produce, and wrote some breathless article about how they found the 'culprit'. This is business as usual masquerading as a longform news piece.

kurthr 1y ago

I'm from the US, but I at least vaguely follow food safety. The idea that this poisoning was a surprise is bizarre. It was the absolute first thing I thought of. It is the most common form of corruption. Similar thing just exploded in china with a red dye for children's school food. Like EV olive oil, salmon, and honey a majority of the food is adulterated. You just hope that it's non-toxic. The real issue is a complete lack of testing or regulation, and I fear soon a loss of "rule of law" in the US. I mean if you bought the right person and airplane or some meme-coin, I'm pretty sure you could sell melamine in baby formula or lead paint in junk food, and it would be blamed on "those damn furriners"!