States: Delhi; The Deadly Mix

A lax administration fails to check the large-scale adulteration of mustard oil. The resultant outbreak of dropsy leaves 20 dead and affects 500 others.

For 13-year-old Meenakshi, life has been a harrowing experience this past week. Her otherwise scrawny frame is strangely at odds with her swollen feet and face. Lying on a hospital bed, she shudders as a sudden spasm of pain shoots up her tired limbs again. Only last Monday, she was a bundle of energy, having had her lunch as usual after a hectic day at school.

That was what had done it, the lunch. The cooking medium that her mother had been using was adulterated mustard oil, the doctors had said bluntly. One of the hundreds to have unsuspectingly fallen prey to what is called dropsy (see box), Meenakshi had eaten food prepared in mustard oil contaminated by oil from the seeds of the common prickly poppy.

But unlike Meenakshi, who can still hope to return home, 20 Delhiites were not so lucky. The chronic swelling in their cases was followed by cardiac or renal failure. Sanguinarine, the toxin found in the prickly poppy -- Argemone mexicana -- proved fatal.

WHAT IS DROPSY?

Dropsy is not a disease. It is a condition of generalised swelling because of abnormal accumulation of fluid in body tissues. "Edema" has long replaced the archaic "dropsy" but the term is now specifically used to mean poisoning from adulterated mustard oil.

When adulterated mustard oil is consumed, a toxin called sanguinarine is released within the body. While the actual mode of action is still unclear, it seems to affect the body capillaries that carry serum and fluids around. They leak and fluids ooze out into spaces between cells. This results in swelling.

Leaking capillaries can in turn affect the liver and heart, as also the kidneys. When the liver gets affected, it impairs the body's natural ability to fight toxins. The liver is one of the main body organs that renders poisons harmless. A bad liver means toxins like sanguinarine begin to accumulate. Eventually, a person might suffer cardiac failure, or even renal failure.

Thanks to a lax administration, several thousand litres of mustard oil flooding the capital's markets were found to be adulterated. How they passed the standard quality control tests earlier is anybody's guess. And when the authorities finally came out of their stupor, the damage had already been done. At last count, the number of dropsy cases had touched 500. The Delhi High Court banned the sale of mustard oil -- both packed and unpacked. Local brands apart, high-end private brands like Kanodia -- even Dhara, produced by a government cooperative -- were found to be substandard, according to official sources. As many as 45 of the 97 samples tested in the past few days have been found adulterated with Argemone seeds. Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma was quick to send out a warning to manufacturers and suppliers: they could get back to business only if they had certificates from the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) for their products.

"Why were the same orders not issued earlier?" asks Tribhuvan, a 22-year-old victim, who suffered much pain. Now it is the Delhi Government which is at the receiving end. "With a court investigation, the police and Government are on the job," says Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. "We are taking all possible action."

While adulteration has been detected in Haryana, Lucknow and parts of Rajasthan, it was Delhi that was most affected. Two wholesale dealers of mustard oil were arrested and factories raided in different parts of the capital. In one of the factories, the police found two tanks for mixing two different oils along with 17 tins marked with local brand names on it. The Government insists that regular checks by the PFA over the past many months had detected only one adulterated sample among 40. But it was in the first week of August that the first case of dropsy was detected.

"There is hardly any logic to the course of events and its suddenness," says Harsh Vardhan. With pressure mounting, he now has a bizarre explanation: "This could well be part of a big conspiracy against the Delhi Government," says the minister, who believes it is an attempt to tarnish the image of the ruling BJP in Delhi which is preparing for assembly elections later this year.

Whatever the reasons behind the outbreak of dropsy, it has had serious repercussions. The trouble stems from Argemone seeds which look almost identical to mustard seeds. While the adulteration of the oil is nothing new, this time the extent of adulteration was found to have crossed the limit. To make matters worse, as a senior doctor in a Delhi government hospital admits, initial cases were not diagnosed properly.

The symptoms -- diarrhoea, abdominal pain and breathlessness, besides swelling of feet, hands and face -- are generic. Doctors believe this made diagnosis difficult during the first few days. The impact of the toxin also depends on how much oil has been taken in. In S.K. Khanna's Food Toxicology Laboratory at the Indian Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC) in Lucknow, researchers have been working with sanguinarine for some time now. Says Khanna: "Our research has shown that it is a toxin with a very slow metabolism."

The Government is belatedly talking of preventive measures. Consumers are being advised to get oil samples tested. The nitric acid test, in which the sample's colour changes on addition of the acid, is considered unreliable. ITRC has developed a simple kit that detects even a small amount of the toxin. Considering that a mere 1 per cent of the substance can play havoc with the human body, the kit should be a useful tool. How the families of Meenakshi and the other victims wish they had known of it earlier.