Insecticide Laced Food Kills at Least 22 Children in India
July 17th, 2013Some of this food wasn’t “properly washed” and dozens of children are dead?
Via: The Star:
At least 22 children died and more than two dozen others were sick after eating a free school lunch that was tainted with insecticide, Indian officials said Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear how chemicals ended up in the food in a school in the eastern state of Bihar. One official said the food may not have been properly washed before it was cooked.
The children, between the ages of 5 and 12, fell ill Tuesday soon after eating lunch in Gandamal village in Masrakh block, 80 kilometres north of the state capital of Patna. School authorities immediately stopped serving the meal of rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes as the children started vomiting.
Savita, a 12-year-old student who uses only one name, said she had a stomach ache after eating soybeans and potatoes and started vomiting.
“I don’t know what happened after that,” Savita said in an interview at Patna Medical College Hospital, where she and many other children were recovering.
Rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes?
These are foods that you cook. It’s not like they were eating salad. This sounds more like contaminated water to me.
The radio report I heard said the cooking oil was contaminated with organic phosphorus and that the cook complained it “didn’t smell right” but was ordered to use it anyway.
Bihar School Deaths Highlight India’s Struggle With Pesticides
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/bihar-school-deaths-highlight-indias-struggle-with-pesticides/?ref=world&_r=0
Monocrotophos:
Main Article: Cholinesterase Inhibitor
Monocrotophos is a highly toxic, broad spectrum, fast-acting cholinesterase inhibiting organophosphate insecticide with both systemic and residual contact actions (#OSHA and #INCHEM. It is highly toxic via all three routes of exposure – oral, dermal, and through inhalation (#PAN UK). The oral LD 50 17 mg/kg in male rats and 20 mg/kg in female rats (#OSHA).
Early symptoms of poisoning may include excessive sweating, headache, weakness, giddiness, nausea, vomiting, hypersalivation, abdominal cramps, diarrhoea, blurred vision and slurred speech (#PAN UK).
http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Monocrotophos