Trackback URL
Download PDF The EARTH Foundation has recently advertised in newspapers for arsenic filters it claimed to have invented, seeking invitation for tenders for supplying five lakh filters without taking necessary approval of the authorities concerned for their marketing.
In the advertisement published on September 10, the Effective Assistance and Rehabilitation for Tormented Humanity (EARTH) Foundation claimed that one of its officials has invented a technology to free water of arsenic.
The advertisement showed images of certificates of Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR), International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR, B), National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Atomic Energy Centre, and Exonics Technology Centre.
These organisations, however, said they did not certify the filter of the EARTH Foundation and that none can sell or advertise in the media any such technology linked to public health for marketing or publicity without the BCSIR approval.
The EARTH Foundation, a non-profit organisation registered under the Society Act 1960 of the Joint Stock Company, started its journey in September 2006. It has so far initiated a number of projects of clinics, training institutes, family planning, micro-credit, consumer’s credit scheme, research and publications and others across the country involving hundreds of crores of taka.
Khan Mohammad Khalid Hossain, who was imprisoned for more than two years in a fraud case and is accused in several other cases, is the chairman and executive director of the foundation.
According to publications of the foundation, its sources of fund are expatriate Bangladeshis, banks, local donors and sales of contraceptive products it has purchased for around Tk 200 crore.
BCSIR Chairman Dr Choudhury Mahmood Hasan said the EARTH Foundation only supplied water samples to the BCSIR for tests claiming that the water was filtered using its technology.
“We asked the EARTH Foundation to supply the filter too. It requires at least three to four months to test such filters as we need to use the filter for arsenic contaminated water from different areas to make sure that it filters arsenic in water from anywhere in the country,” Mahmood said. The EARTH Foundation did not follow the BCSIR instructions, he added.
Water matrix of different places are different and a filter invented in the USA or Europe may not be applicable in Bangladesh, the BCSIR chairman explained.
The BCSIR has a committee to extend technological verification support under the Arsenic Mitigation Programme and this committee is the sole authority to certify any such filter, he said.
Michael T Behan, general counsel of ICDDR, B, said the institute never tested or certified the EARTH Foundation filter.
“Our Environmental Microbiology Laboratory simply received two water samples submitted by the EARTH Foundation and issued two routine lab reports on August 9, 2007,” he said.
It appears that one of those reports was used in the foundation’s advertisement, Behan said, adding, “Our laboratory has no knowledge of the sources of the water samples or the type of filtration used, if any. Anyone can bring a water sample for testing at ICDDR, B…Our analyses and results cannot and do not state anything about the sample’s source or any intermediary treatment it might have received.”
Prof SK Akhter Ahmad of Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at NIPSOM in a certificate recommended the filter on the basis of “certificates” of the ICDDR, B and BCSIR, which were actually not certification on the filter.
He said in the certificate that the EARTH filter project was conducted with his frequent advice and suggestions.
The EARTH Foundation’s advertisement said each schedule document would be sold for non-refundable Tk 2,000 and that two percent earnest money of the total quoted value must be submitted along with the tender in favour of the foundation.
When contacted, Dr Mohammad Abdul Jalil, director of the foundation’s health division, said, “There is no restriction against publicising the filter. We never said we are making the publicity for marketing and will not take certification from the BCSIR.”
Jalil said, “We are sure that the filter will be certified. Our aim is to make available these low-cost filters to poor people.”
Asked how many companies have taken part in the bidding, he said he does not have any idea about that.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Nature herself has imprinted on the minds of all the idea of God.