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

(www.npr.org)
354 points perihelions | 1 comments | 11 Jul 25 15:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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infinitifall ◴[11 Jul 25 18:46 UTC] No.44535649[source]▶
I'm put off by how this is framed as a detective story. Pesticides that contain heavy metals and other carcinogens are a well known issue, with India (and South Asia more generally) being the worst affected.

> You'll never guess the culprit

Not knowing about turmeric comes off as deeply ignorant when a billion people consume it as part of their daily diet.

> They don't know that this is harmful for human health

Let me assure you that they absolutely do and they couldn't care less. This also makes it seem like poor clueless farmers are to blame while mega-corporations that process, package, market and distribute these spices are never given even a passing mention!

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1. in_cahoots ◴[11 Jul 25 21:09 UTC] No.44536806[source]▶
I asked my Bengali friend, who grew up in a lower-class family in rural Bangladesh. This is something he learned about in schools in the 90's. The test isn't easily available, but it's not like this is a surprise to the Bangladeshi community.

The analogy would be if someone came to the US, found salmonella on some produce, and wrote some breathless article about how they found the 'culprit'. This is business as usual masquerading as a longform news piece.