Government officials later said they have not been able to confirm a link from Schneider's Lunchmate products to Parmalat's cheddar cheese. Lawyer for the victims, Peter Gordon from Slater and Gordon, was cited as telling Sky the settlement was a good outcome for the consumers and the company involved. Indian health officials were cited as saying that the states of Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh had banned the sale of mustard oil as four more deaths were reported in the Indian capital after people consumed adulterated oil, bringing the total from the dropsy disease to 15. More than 500 people have been hospitalised. The story says that dropsy is caused by the toxic alkaloid sanguinarine present in argemone oil, which, whether added accidentally or deliberately, adulterates mustard oil.
Pyruvic acid accumulates in the blood after consumption of the adulterated oil.
The patient develops swelling in the legs and suffers from loose bowels. Difficulty in breathing and heart failure may lead to death, with the mortality rate ranging from five to 50 percent. Any one who ever worked in a restaurant knows there's a world of difference between the front of the house and the back of the house, and, the story says, most health inspectors can direct you to four-star establishments where the food is prepared under Third World sanitary conditions. Both ratings were featured in an exhaustive survey of 783 metro Detroit groceries conducted by Alison Young, the Free Press' consumer watchdog. Both of my favorite groceries are among those getting closer scrutiny by inspectors.