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The consumption of rice that contains high levels of inorganic arsenic may cause human health risk. This study aims to determine As species concentrations, particularly iAs, in raw rice in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City and its health risks.

A total of 60 polished raw composite samples of rice were purchased from traditional markets and supermarkets in HCM City. All samples were analyzed by HPLC-ICPMS for As species determination.

Mean concentrations of inorganic arsenic in all samples, which were purchased from supermarket and traditional market, were 88.8 µg/kg and 80.6 µg/kg, respectively. Overall, inorganic arsenic level was 84.7 µg/kg and contributed the highest proportion of arsenic species in rice with 67.7%. The proportion profiles for arsenic species were: As (III) (60 %); dimethylarsinic acid (32.2 %); As (V) (7.7 %) and methylarsonic acid (0.1 %). Inorganic arsenic level in raw rice was below the recommendation of World Health Organization. Using the benchmark dose recommended by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), all exposure doses were lower than BMDL05. However, as the doses ranged from 3.0 to 8.6 of Margin of Exposure (MOE), the health risk of iAs from rice consumption remains public health concern.

The study results report on the surveillance data of the presence of inorganic arsenic in raw rice products, which are available in the supermarkets and traditional markets, and its health risk to consumers in a metropolitan city in Vietnam.

The contamination of groundwater by natural arsenic is currently a worldwide epidemic. Arsenic-contaminated groundwater has been reported in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, China, Hungary, West Bengal in India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Of these regions, Bangladesh and West Bengal are the most seriously affected in terms of the size of the population at risk and magnitude of health problems. Hence, chronic exposure to arsenic >50′′μg/L in drinking water can result in serious health problems. Common symptoms of arsenic-related ailments are skin, cardiovascular, renal, hematological, and respiratory disorders. Therefore, this chapter focuses on nature, origin, and extent of groundwater arsenic contamination, probable causes, and its impacts on food, drinking water, and social coverage. It further discloses mitigation approaches proposed and practiced by the different research groups to combat this problem and finally concludes.

Things seem to be going desperately wrong with the concept of the “brave new world” predicted by the starry‐eyed optimists after the Second World War finally came to an end. To those who listen only to what they want to hear, see everything, not as it is, but as they would like it to be, a new society could be initiated and the lusty infant would emerge as a paragon for all the world to follow. The new society in truth never really got off the ground the biggest mistake of all was to cushion millions of people against the results of their own folly; to shelter them from the blasts of the ensuing economic climate. The sheltered ones were not necessarily the ordinary mass of people; many in fact were the victims and suffered the consequences. And now that the state has reached a massive crescendo, many are suffering profoundly. The big nationalised industries and vast services, such as the national health service, education, where losses in the case of the first are met by Government millions, requests to trim the extravagant spending is akin to sacrilege in the latter, have removed such terms as thrift, careful spending, value for money from the vocabulary.

This teaching case aims to stimulate the debate over the issue of arsenic in rice and prepares students to make a decision by evaluating trade-offs and aligning moral values in a business context.

Rice feeds people in many parts of the world. This teaching case focuses on an entrepreneurial food producer who has strong sustainability values built into his business model. The CEO, Johan Henriksson, of Vegoganic faces a dilemma when a press release by the Swedish National Food Agency potentially threatens the core existence of the business. It challenges the CEO to take a stand on food safety and food security, as well as personal and societal values.

It is a discussion case, developed with undergraduate students in mind, but could be taken to a graduate level by including more advanced literature and questions.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 8: Marketing

Discusses environmental factors which may have harmful effects on the cardiovascular system and cause acute or chronic disease. Classifies these factors as chemical, physical, biological and psychosocial. Concentrates on describing the chemical, physical and biological elements which directly cause cardiovascular diseases, such as nicotine and carbon monoxide (chemical); temperatue and electricity (physical) and viral infections such as maternal coxsackie (biological). Concludes by stressing the need for more intensive studies on this subject.

Millions of people in Southwestern Bangladesh drink groundwater that has arsenic contamination levels above both Bangladeshi and WHO standards. Thus, arsenic, the king of poisons, presents significant social problems in the rural communities of Bangladesh. Lacking arsenic-free drinking water, the local populations are most adversely affected. Arsenic contamination of drinking water and food is the main pathway by which arsenic enters people’s lives, producing diseases such as melanosis, keratosis, skin lesions, skin cancers, and kidney failure. Therefore, to cope with and alleviate arsenic poisoning, whatever adaptation and mitigation strategy is adopted, it should, however, start with and be led by the local community wherever possible for it is local villagers who are often the real experts on arsenic contamination. Rather than implementing highly technical, expensive, and outsider-led interventions that are often untried in field conditions, priority should be given to using modified traditional coping and mitigation mechanisms developed in the communities in Bangladesh. Hence, this chapter highlights first the extent of arsenic poisoning in the Southwestern part; its adverse impact on livelihood, water sector, and social aspect; and then the focus shifts to community-level mitigation strategy led by the people along with the assistance of GO and nongovernmental organization (NGO); and finally there is the conclusion along with recommendations.

Bangladesh is facing an alarming situation with the drinking water in its most areas, as groundwater used for drinking has been contaminated with naturally occurring inorganic arsenic. Many entrepreneurs along with the government are trying to cope up with this problem. SONO filter is one of them that is based on the social innovation concept. Social innovation is defined as innovative products/services motivated by the goal of meeting a social need, with the opportunity to create new social collaborations. This paper aims to examine the concepts of social innovation, which advocates enhancing values to society and the social benefit to all the stakeholders.

This is an exploratory study and presents the evolution, the development of the social business model and its implementation. Abul Hussam initiated the social business concept through SONO filter that is commercialized through the Manob Sakti Unnayan Kendro. The study has been conducted entirely on the basis of documentary information and data available in the public domain.

The findings show a hopeful contribution toward enhancing social benefits to society especially in arsenic-affected areas. SONO filter helps to mitigate the water-borne diseases and make people clean and safe, as well as healthy, by providing pure drinking water. Even by drinking pure water, people with arsenic-related diseases are getting better day by day through this social initiative.

Business based on social innovation is a new and really a good working concept. It has faced many hurdles in its journey to meet social objectives. Many researchers, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, national planners and society leaders will surely be benefited by its solution.

This study aims to examine the metal pollution in coastal sediment in the Peninsular Malaysia.

Approximately 141 published studies were screened from 1,285 documents and reviewed to determine the existing pollution status in the coastal areas of Peninsular Malaysia and the metals under review were Pb, Hg, Cd, Ar, Cu, Zn, Cr and Ni. Sources of pollutants and their effect on biological systems, marine organisms and human health were addressed in this review as well as recommendation of heavy metal removal or remedies in short. Emphasis is placed on marine pollution, particularly on the toxic metal accumulation in biota.

This study has revealed the different concentrations of pollutants, low, moderately, and chronically contaminated areas from heavy metals and the consequences to aquatic ecosystem and indirectly to human health, since an increasing in the coastal developments in Peninsular Malaysia.

This study has revealed the different concentrations of pollutants, low, moderately, and chronically contaminated areas from heavy metals and the consequences to aquatic ecosystem and indirectly to human health, since an increasing in the coastal developments in Peninsular Malaysia.

This study aims to systematically review the health risk assessment of the concentration of heavy metals in Pistacia species globally.

The authors systematically searched PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus and Google Scholar to identify all articles published between 1 January 2002 and 20 August 2022. A total of 33 studies met the authors’ inclusion criteria, and their data were extracted. Additionally, the potential risk to human health was assessed by calculating the target hazard quotient and hazard index for both child and adult consumers.

The estimated daily intake for heavy metals in the included studies ranged from 9.72 × 10^–9 to 7.35 (mg/day) in the following order: zinc (Zn) > mercury (Hg) > iron (Fe) > lead (Pb) > copper (Cu) > aluminum (Al) > nickel (Ni) > chromium (Cr) > manganese (Mn) > cadmium (Cd) > arsenic (As) > selenium (Se) > cobalt (Co). Among the studies that investigated heavy metals in Pistacia species around the world, the non-carcinogenic risk for all species of Pistacia was determined to be less than 1, except for Pb and Hg in Pistacia lentiscus.

The soil near the industrial area contained excessive amounts of heavy metals, which led to the transfer of heavy metals to plants. Owing to the insufficiency of the number of studies that examined heavy metals in Pistacia species, further monitoring and investigations were recommended.