Editorial: Children at risk of poisoning

Friday, Oct. 7, 2005 | 8:06 a.m.

With Halloween trick-or-treating just around the corner, news that candy tainted with lead is available on grocery shelves in some areas of the Las Vegas Valley presents a real-life scare.

A Brinley Middle School health teacher, who noticed several of her students possessed Mexican candy that was listed on a poster warning of lead contamination, conducted a study with UNLV and found 11 types of the tainted treats are sold locally. The 4,000 candies UNLV tested were purchased within two miles of the university, mostly at dollar stores, the teacher told the Las Vegas Sun this week. Some were the same varieties profiled in an ongoing Orange County Register investigation into lead-contaminated reats manufactured in Mexico.

The Food and Drug Administration in April 2004 began warning parents not to allow children to eat chili- and tamarind-based candies from Mexico. In banning the treats, FDA officials discovered that many manufacturers make a second, "cleaner," version for the United States. But through independent distributors or in the trunks of private vehicles, some of these lead-laden candies are still crossing the border, making it onto local grocery shelves and into the mouths of our children.

The Clark County Health District, which hired someone last year solely to follow lead poisoning in children, has pulled from the market those candies specifically banned by the FDA. Health officials have distributed to hospitals and elementary schools the "toxic treats" warning posters created by the California newspaper and developed a brochure about lead poisoning, printed in English and Spanish.

But the brochures don't give details on the tainted Mexican candy or the federal warnings. And Clark County health officials have not sent notices to local retailers warning them about candies that are not safe. In its reporting this week, the Sun found the treats easy to obtain in at least two area Hispanic grocery store chains. Store owners said they were not aware that candies they were selling were among those deemed unsafe, believing they had obtained the "clean" U.S. versions.

Washoe County Health District officials sent bilingual warnings to Northern Nevada shopkeepers a year ago. But in Clark County, where about a quarter of the population is Hispanic, health officials have issued no such warnings to retailers, citing a lack of "money and science."

Lead, which causes the most damage when ingested by children younger than 6, attacks the central nervous system and kills brain cells, leading to behavioral problems and a lower IQ. It also prevents the body's absorption of calcium and iron -- highly detrimental to growing children. It is absurd that public health officials have taken a "wait-and-see" stance on adequately warning store owners of the lethal wares that are sitting on their shelves and packaged for children.