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Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

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Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#131

Post by OJFord »

OJFord wrote: post #44
ashwinsundar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the coloring is easier to visually detect on the whole root, versus the powder (according to article). If you see bright yellow whole turmeric at a store, run away! FYI real, fresh turmeric is a dull orange color with a tan papery skin. It still stains the hands and cutting board when chopped, but that's normal. As the root dries, it turns a dull yellow-orange.

I know; it stains teeth and toothbrushes too, requiring a mad amount of brushing and mouthwash to get approximately nowhere. ('My friend' hasn't bought it fresh since!)

And @dead commenter, yes I'm well aware it's botanically a rhizome, just like ginger. Colloquially, even culinarily, that's not common and it's not particularly helpful to say, many people not knowing what it is, and it's certainly not an important distinction to make here.

I also know tomatoes are fruits, but in the comment section on the importance of eating fruits it would hardly be helpful to give as an example 'yes it's very important to eat plenty of fruit, such as tomato' - it's needlessly confusing when 'apple' would suffice.

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#132

Post by OJFord »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #77
missinglugnut wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the exception of one brand I hadn't heard of (La Flor), every turmeric tested was either safe or in the "some concern" category. CR does a disservice by not sharing their test levels, but I'm willing to bet my own health that "some concern" is multiple orders of magnitude less lead than what this npr article is about.

The point is that this (and similar) problems are not categorically caught at the US border.

But I wasn't suggesting it would be 'caught at the US border' so much as that if you're buying from big industrial process exporting around the world it's just so much less likely to be an issue to begin with. Article is about relatively small time farmers (processing and perhaps direct selling it themselves) trying to save their failed crop and their livelihood.

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#133

Post by abeppu »

ericmay wrote: post #124
abeppu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you ascribe even the slightest but of agency to any of the non-Americans involved, you have to wonder if this problem will come back. From the article: > And recently they are celebrating some big news on the lead fighting front: This week, UNICEF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a new $150 million initiative to combat lead poisoning. Americans have disassembled US…

> The agency of Americans is also contributing to this reccuring. I’m going to push back very, very hard on ascribing any sort of blame on anyone other than those who are committing these acts. Least of all the American taxpayer, regardless of whether or not dismantling USAID is a good idea. If the rest of the world is so helpless that all hope depends on Americans to solve even problems such as this and it’s our fau…

The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy.

> The money – most of it from Open Philanthropy – will go to more than a dozen countries from Indonesia and Uganda to Ghana and Peru.

From other sources, I think the US _financial_ commitment was actually pretty minimal ($4M). But if USAID had been providing important governance, administration or coordination, withdrawing its involvement could still destabilize an effort that otherwise could have been impactful.

https://healthpolicy-watch.news/us-government-commits-4-mill...

"Blame" is a loaded word. But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty? And that the country with the largest military in the world also should be held to a high standard in how it uses that tremendous force?

If we were just some average-sized middle-income country, then no one would expect that we should play a disproportionate role in helping things at an international level, or that the use of our military is more criticized than any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and we've had some military presence in other continents pretty much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to be able to act with impunity.

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#134

Post by rayiner »

kragen wrote: post #99
rayiner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Your family is from Bangladesh, aren't they?

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.randeepr...

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#135

Post by kayodelycaon »

Amezarak wrote: post #76
phendrenad2 wrote: post #57

I think this NPR article is too quick to put a positive spin on this. They have made a nice little story here with a happy ending. Farmers had blackened turmeric -> they used a random yellow die they found -> massive lead spike in everyone's bloodstream -> Americans came in with a xray gun and saved the day -> no more lead in the blood. But if you ascribe even the slightest but of agency to any of the non-Americans i…

I don't think the NPR reporter is deliberately spinning the story. I think a lot of people don't really believe that other people are really different from them. The reporter would never knowingly poison people for money, so it's not comprehensible to them that lots of people in the world just don't care whether they do or not. The only reason in their minds that people would do such a thing are economic desperation…

In the course of history, it wasn’t that long ago when people brought snacks to an execution.

That’s a little hard to wrap your head around.

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#136

Post by [deleted] »

abeppu wrote: post #133
ericmay wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The agency of Americans is also contributing to this reccuring. I’m going to push back very, very hard on ascribing any sort of blame on anyone other than those who are committing these acts. Least of all the American taxpayer, regardless of whether or not dismantling USAID is a good idea. If the rest of the world is so helpless that all hope depends on Americans to solve even problems such as this and it’s our fau…

The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy. > The money – most of it from Open Philanthropy – will go to more than a dozen countries from Indonesia and Uganda to Ghana and Peru. From other sources, I think the US _financial_ commitment was actually pretty minimal ($4M). But if USAID had been providing important governance, administr…

[deleted]

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#137

Post by fuzzfactor »

kragen wrote: post #108
pfdietz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concentrations of lead being discussed here are as much as 1000 ppm or even higher.

Quoting perihelions's comment above: [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25214856/ ("Contaminated turmeric is a potential source of lead exposure for children in rural Bangladesh" / "Results: Lead concentrations in many turmeric samples were elevated, with lead concentrations as high as 483 ppm")

>as much as 1000 ppm or even higher.

The higher it is, the less likely for challenges in detection, and/or interference from background.

>lead concentrations as high as 483 ppm

SSDD.

Shouldn't be that hard to detect at that level which is way above ppb. There are a number of reliable methods.

However if the Minimum Detectable Level for a particular test procedure was only 500 ppm or above, one of these samples would report just as clean as a sample having no lead whatsoever; MDL's like this which vary among different test methods do need to be carefully compared to the toxicity levels being screened for.

That's another one of the confounding aspects to be aware of.

Depending on circumstances, I may or may not prefer a different calibration session for each of these two levels, even though they are both within the same order of magnitude.

Either way ideally I would be preparing NIST-traceable reference materials at the proper levels for comparison & confirmation. Not much differently than I would do for the benchtop models and the forklift models of x-ray units. And to really get down into the ppb levels that's when the ICP/mass-spec comes in handy, that's a benchtop unit itself, too big to fit on a regular desk though. However you don't really get the most out of the ICP without a huge cryogenic tank of liquid argon out back so you can "consume mass quantities" ;)

With a handheld x-ray unit, if you are only assaying gold & silver it may be fine to send it back for calibration once a year, if the pawn shops even do that. For food testing I would want more of a laboratory-style analytical procedure and calibration which is concurrent with materials being tested.

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#138

Post by BobbyJo »

abeppu wrote: post #133
ericmay wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The agency of Americans is also contributing to this reccuring. I’m going to push back very, very hard on ascribing any sort of blame on anyone other than those who are committing these acts. Least of all the American taxpayer, regardless of whether or not dismantling USAID is a good idea. If the rest of the world is so helpless that all hope depends on Americans to solve even problems such as this and it’s our fau…

The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy. > The money – most of it from Open Philanthropy – will go to more than a dozen countries from Indonesia and Uganda to Ghana and Peru. From other sources, I think the US _financial_ commitment was actually pretty minimal ($4M). But if USAID had been providing important governance, administr…

> But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty?

I think this is a mischaracterization of parent's point. He didn't say it was strange , and he didn't say we had no role to play.

> that the use of our military is more criticized than any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and we've had some military presence in other continents pretty much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to be able to act with impunity

This seems largely orthogonal to parent's point, which I would rephrase as "We can't be police and not police at the same time. If your expectations require us to be both, they're bad expectations."

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#139

Post by ceejayoz »

Gud wrote: post #130
steveBK123 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm 100% against the dismantling of our foreign aid programs, USAID included.. However, the world playing both sides of the coin on "US World Police" being bad when it does stuff but also bad when it doesn't do stuff is part of how we end up where we are. It's a minuscule part of our budget, but an easy sell for right wingers to say "well the world isn't grateful for it and its all a bunch of waste so we are k…

This argument makes absolutely no sense. You can be against empire x taking action y while being positive it’s taking action z.

The world lets us take action y (which they don’t necessarily like) because we do a lot of action z.

Re: Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)

#140

Post by canyp »

prairieroadent wrote: post #64
padjo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So rather than have government do the testing and holding producers to account we get every consumer to do it? That sounds pretty inefficient.

I imagine that in a competitive market where the participants are educated that the farmers would publish tests alongside their crop and the educated consumer would understand that they should be buying direct from farmers and be processing the turmeric themselves

This is why governments exist and what you're proposing is absurd. Do you want to compile a list of every possible threat you are exposed to daily and amend your comment? Sounds like you need to educate yourself on the role of government before you parrot more "competitive market" nonsense.
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