Contaminated food to blame

Consumption of contaminated food is one of the main reasons for kidney damages and different types of cancers, said noted physician Dr AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury yesterday.

People who are involved in mixing chemicals with food should be given exemplary punishment such as “life-term imprisonment and death penalty”, said Dr Badruddoza, also the president of Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh.

The former president made the remarks while speaking as the chief guest at a discussion on cancer prevention organised by Mosabbir Cancer Care Centre, a charity organisation, at the capital's The Daily Star Centre.

“Early detection is very important to prevent and cure cancer. To detect cancer, doctors of all health centres have to take training in duration of three days in a year,” suggested Dr Badruddoza.

Speakers at the discussion stressed the need for prohibiting tobacco consumption, healthy lifestyle, consumption of chemical-free food and early detection of cancer for preventing the deadly disease.

They also urged the government to take an initiative for making the cost of cancer treatment affordable and withdraw taxation from import of raw materials of medicines.

The government should impose more tax on all types of tobacco products, he said. Also, people have to be aware of the dangers of consuming tobacco.

Mahbub Jamil, former adviser to a caretaker government, said along with the government initiative, affluent people should come forward to help cancer patients.

Brig Gen (retd) Shahedul Anam, associate editor of The Daily Star, said the government will not be able to deal with cancer successfully if the solvent people do not come forward. He also assured that the newspaper will try its best to provide support.

Lt Col (retd) Mudassir Hossain Khan, president of the cancer care centre, and Nawazish Ali Khan, an adviser of ATN Bangla, also spoke.