More than 200 children from a nursery in China had staggeringly high levels of lead in their blood after a school chef prepped them steamed red date cake and sausage corn bun
More than 200 nursery children have been poisoned after a school chef allegedly used a fatal product to decorate their food.
Dozens of school kids are being treated in hospital with lead poisoning in north-west China after food samples from Peixin Kindergarten showed levels were 2,000 times over the national safety limit.
After a school chef made steamed red date cake and sausage corn bun, 233 children from the nursery had staggeringly high levels of lead in their blood.
The food items had lead levels of 1052mg/kg and 1340mg/kg respectively, which both exceed the national food safety standard limit of 0.5mg/kg.
CCTV cameras in the kitchen showed the staff adding inedible paint to the food, according to police. The headteacher had asked the kitchen staff to purchase the paint online.
However, dozens of children suddenly fell ill, and police had to search for the paint which was marked as inedible.
Some parents are worried about the long-term and developmental harm the lead poisoning could do to their children.
Mr Liu took his child to the hospital for testing last week, and his son needs ten days of treatment and medication.
It is unclear how long the paint has been used in the food, but several parents had told state media that their children have had stomach and leg pain and a lack of appetite since March.
“I don’t know much, but I think this is a cover up,” one woman told Sky News. “I just think local government is too dark, they suppress the news.
“Who will be willing to have children? Who dares to send the children to kindergarten?” she asked. “Now if people send children to primary school, the first thing they ask is are you safe? Is the school safe? Can it guarantee the personal safety of our children in the future, right?”
“The children only eat three-colour jujube steamed cake and corn sausage rolls once or twice a week, how could they be poisoned so seriously?” another mum, who gave her surname Wu, told CNR.
Professor Stuart Khan, head of the University of Sydney’s School of Civil Engineering, told CNN that blood lead levels as high as those would “typically require regular exposure for several weeks to months, unless there is a very acute poisoning episode” and that levels can rise progressively with “continuous environmental exposure.”
The headteacher of the privately-run kindergarten and seven others, will be investigated on suspicion of producing toxic and harmful food. The distrust of food safety comes after cooking oil in China was found to be being moved in containers used for fuel without hygienic cleaning in between.
Last year, tankers used for transporting fuel were not decontaminated correctly, according to state-run Beijing News.