Lead-tainted turmeric: How Bangladesh triumphed over a silent killer in golden spice

Bangladesh is known for its colourful cuisine, rich with various spices. Dried or powdered turmeric, a key ingredient for creating food with vibrant colour, used to be tainted with lead as businesses added lead-based pigments to boost sales. The lead pigment brightened the colour of the spice but it harmed anyone who came in touch with it or consumed the tainted turmeric.

However, Bangladesh successfully eliminated lead from the turmeric business within just two years through a highly effective campaign.

Authorities achieved this remarkable feat by raising awareness among traders through meetings, monitoring markets, penalising illegal colour mixing, and providing training to turmeric powder mill owners.

According to a study released in September last year, "The proportion of market turmeric samples [from Bangladesh] containing detectable lead decreased from 47% pre-intervention in 2019 to 0% in 2021."

Among workers at turmeric mills, blood lead levels dropped by 30% on average, the study published in the Environmental Research journal found.

A preliminary analysis by the New York-based environmental NGO Pure Earth found that the campaign added an extra year of healthy life for just one dollar. On the other hand, to achieve the same financial success directly would have cost approximately $836.

The achievement and the government's approach towards it is now lauded across the world, especially in neighbouring countries where lead contamination remains a grave threat.   

The Economist, a British weekly, in a November article said India has much to learn from Bangladesh's more open, pragmatic approach. 

"The developing world has countless health and environmental problems that it might help solve. For these many reasons, it should be sustained and widely copied."

Vox, a US news website, in a September report, said, "It's rare to see such fast, decisive action on a major health problem – and impressive to see it immediately rewarded with such a dramatic improvement in blood lead levels and health outcomes. It's a reminder that things can change, and can change very quickly, as long as people care, and as long as they act.

Lead's harm to human body

To increase the brightness of dried or powdered turmeric, lead chromate was used during the processing of the product, which is locally known as puree, pipadi, basanti rang, kathali or saree phul rang. The practice is called turmeric polishing. 

Consuming this polished turmeric can raise lead levels in blood, especially risky for children, impairing their development. 

Researchers link lead, a neurotoxin, to heart and brain diseases. A study by the Center for Global Development in Washington revealed a 20% learning gap in children from poor countries due to lead exposure.

How leaded-turmeric was uncovered

Dr Md Mahbubur Rahman, project coordinator at International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) told The Business Standard that in 2014-2015, they found in a study that 31% of pregnant women in some areas had elevated blood lead levels.

"Then we started exploring, testing many things like spices, traditional medicine, soil. After further testing we found lead in turmeric they consumed," he added.

The issue drew international attention when in 2019, high levels of lead were detected in the blood of Bangladeshi children and adults living in New York. The city's health department identified spices imported from Bangladesh as having high levels of lead in their blood after 10 years of testing.

The city's health authority sent a letter to the Bangladesh Consulate in New York on 7 March 2019 to take quick action in this regard. 

At the same time, a team of researchers from Stanford University and the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) began research on turmeric adulteration in Bangladesh.

Govt all out action 

Armed with their findings, the researchers met relevant authorities and urged quick action.   

The Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) was instructed to investigate and take necessary measures from the Prime Minister's office on 17 June of the same year.

Dr Mahbubur said they collaborated with the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority, sharing documented findings. 

Together they conducted stakeholder meetings, monitoring visits, regulatory actions, and media campaigns. "Our efforts extended to both Dhaka and non-Dhaka wholesale markets, garnering active participation from the media and local administration."

Besides, the BFSA declared the adulteration of turmeric as a crime, he said. A government raid on a large turmeric processing plant was televised. Two wholesale traders were sentenced by a mobile court for selling tainted turmeric in Moulvibazar.

Commending the government's campaign, the Economist report said, "This low-cost, co-ordinated and relentless approach to problem-solving, familiar to admirers of Bangladesh, has underpinned its outstanding development success over the past two decades. And Sheikh Hasina deserves credit for it."