2,00,000,000 guinea pigs.

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         1.                                 2,00,000,000  guinea pigs.

                                      ( With Malice Towards None)

.“100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics is a book written by Arthur Kallet and F.J. Schlink first released in 1933 by the Vanguard Press and manufactured in the United States of America. Its central argument propounds that the American population is being used as guinea pigs in a giant experiment undertaken by the American producers of food stuffs and patent medicines and the like.

The book goes on to state that the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 is not effective in arresting these trends, and real reform or consumer protection is obstructed by the powerful connections that offending corporations have with the government .

If the poison is such that it acts slowly and insidiously, perhaps over a long period of years  then we poor consumers must be test animals all our lives; and when, in the end, the experiment kills us a year or ten years sooner than otherwise we would have died, no conclusions can be drawn and a hundred million others are available for further tests"(Source :- Wikipedia ).

I took a cue from Authur Kallet and F.J.Schlink’s book  as title of this essay.

Guinea pigs are animals  belonging to the rat family . These are used for laboratory  tests . They are no way connected to pigs and they don’t belong to Guinea .

With the first Martial Law imposed on 28^th October 1958 , the ugly capitalists began throwing their stocks of adulterated ghee other consumer items which were horded in the nearest river or sea   .However , when the fear was over . they went back to their infamous occupations .

There was the West Pakistan Pure food and Drugs Act . These laws have undergone revisions . Some educated people know . This law appartently is not applied  . A visit to the market and a survey of edible goods that are sold will prove the hollowness of the state machinery and the laws enacted in the august houses of the Parliament and the provincial legislatures .

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I give you an illustration . For eg. In a market there are one hundred shops . When the Food Inspector comes , each shopkeeper pools Rs 100/  . The Inspector goes back happy richer by Rs 10000/ in his pocket .  

                                                                                                                                                        For instance , milk   is being ‘ manufactured’ not hygienically clean laboratories .But in filthy rooms and in filthy containers . A compound of Barium Sulphate mixed with concentrated Sulphuric Acid are used  to prepare milk . On a serious note , however , ‘packed milk’ has chemicals injurious to human health .’ Vegetable ghee’ that is sold openly has injurious items used in its ‘manufacture ‘ such as dead animals offal . Of course , an  independent Pakistan has no “consumer proctection’ advocate like  Ralph Nader ( A reference to Ralph Nader of the US).

This is not confined to only milk or vegetable ghee . The markets , including those located posh areas , have no concept of cleanliness . The butchers wear dirty dresses . Their shops are dirty with flies hovering  over the meat . We have no concept of standardization and grading . Once , in the UK, salmonella was found . Resultantly , thousands of eggs and chickens in the region were destroyed .

The daily onslaught on body and soul , of course , is tremendous . All gratitude to our Maker .

 I wish to point out  to various views on the Indians , and by inference , to the Pakistanis too . Winston Churchill was strongly against the grant of independence to India . He denounced them rascals and scoundrels . No less than the Founder of Pakistan , the Quaid e Azam’  in his speech on 11^th September 1947 to the Constituent Assembly warned the nation against the lack of law and order , bribery and corruption , blackmarketing ,nepotism and jobbery .

M.A. Burke , Pakistan’s  first Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York,  in one the  chapters ‘ Jinnah , Ayub and Bhutto’ of his book  denounced Punjab’s  politicians of his time masquerading  as ‘saints and holy men’. This book is lying in the library of the Cabinet Division .

The three statements quoted above is indicative of a deep malaise dating  much before the Partition of India and Pakistan . While we don’t know the state of affairs in India now , the conditions in Pakistan are before us . The

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Governments in the centre as well as the provinces have done precious little in this regard .

MAHFOOZ UR RAHMAN

ISLAMABAD

NOVEMBER 10, 2013