The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) says it has detected lead and cadmium in some food products and cosmetics and plans to intensify testing of food products and cooking utensils for heavy metal contamination.
Deputy Chief Executive for the Food Division at the FDA, Roderick Kwabena Daddy-Adjei, said the findings had raised concerns about the potential health risks associated with exposure to heavy metals.
Speaking at the launch of the National Strategic Plan for Heavy Metal Reduction in Food in Accra, he said the FDA would work with other institutions to identify and control sources of contamination.
He added that a handheld XRF machine donated by UNICEF would help the FDA conduct more field testing.
“From the different food products that we picked – turmeric, food for the children, Winniemix, corn, what people say Tom Brown, Kaji Kaji and the rest – all that we picked, in the end, we realised that there is lead in our food and in some of our cosmetics. So, we have to come up with a plan.
“Some of the strategies include sensitisation, making people aware that all is not well. The women who are taking ‘Shire’, we are making them aware that some of those products are not necessary. Because in many of them, you may have lead.
“Even to our surprise, one of the things that we saw was that there’s what we call cadmium. These are heavy metals. Heavy metals are chemicals that are in small quantities, but they can give us a lot of problems. They can cause cancer; they can affect our liver. We are not in safe times. Some of the cooking utensils may have lead,” he said.