How Poisoned Applesauce Found Its Way to Kids

from The New York Times I'm Michael. babbaro this is the. [Music]. daily. today a times investigation has revealed. how applesauce leased with high levels. of lead which poisoned hundreds of. children across the US sailed through a. food safety system meant to protect. American. consumers I spoke with my colleague. Christina Jew about what she.

[Music]. found it's Thursday February. 29th Christina where does this story. start so last summer families All Over. America started to have sort of a. mysterious problem their kids had. startlingly high blood Le levels and. this is extremely alarming for all these.

families because lead poisoning can lead. to behavior problems learning problems. developmental problems as well and. basically no one knows where this is. coming from our daughter loves makeup. and doing her nails. dresses and our son loves cars and. airplanes loud. exhaust and one of the families in this. situation is Nicole Peterson and Thomas. Young they have two little kids little.

boy who's one and a daughter who's three. and our son had gone to his first annual. checkup and they did a finger prick and. his blood level is high and during their. routine pediatric visits for the summer. they learn that the kids have high blood. levels we're talking about triple to. quadruple the cdc's level of concern. basically wow it's kind of like a. nightmare right it was tough very tough.

so that gets reported to the county the. health department sends out an. inspector he goes through their house. with sort of this lead x-ray gun and. he's shooting everything every pot pan. toys I open up the rice cooker you know. to literally test everything this is a a. 5 hour process the door frame there was. some in there but there was no concern. because there was no chipping no wear it. was encapsulated is what he mentioned he.

finds some lead in a doorway in the. basement he finds lead in a figurine. that's sort of a family heirloom some. antique birds that my grandmother had. given me you know but Out Of Reach. they're seasonal they don't the kids are. not putting them in their mouth none of. these things are what the kids are. touching or eating or or really playing. with at all so it was really sort of a. mystery right and then the kids are.

screened again they get checked in the. middle of August and and their blood. level doubled the numbers have gone up. into the 20s and so now 24 yeah everyone. is of course very very concerned. freaking out they're saying that this. has never happened before in County. history that this is the first time that. they've seen this Thomas and I were not. sleeping we're not eating like this is. driving us crazy and tormenting us.

so the family is freaking out the. parents get their levels tested and it's. normal so now they're really really. facing a mystery I mean what are the. kids exposed to that the parents are not. so the county goes out to the daycare. looks at everything there they spent a. few hours at the daycare and nothing. they didn't really have any answers um. they really didn't know where to guide. us or kind us us in the right direction. yeah.

and then the parents start a food diary. we all eat the same food we don't eat. different food the kids don't get one. meal and we get another meal and so and. they realize that there's one thing that. the kids eat that they don't only thing. that they eat that we don't eat are. these pouches you and it's these foil. packets of cinnamon applesauce that the. family gives the kids as a routine snack. and they loved it they would devour it. and they would eat it on the playground. if they were just out in a bath you know.

because right I mean every parent me. included gives their kids a pouch of. applesauce it is the universal food of. the American toddler exactly so what. happens once the family Narrows this. down to applesauce so the county health. inspector comes out they take samples of. the packets they take it to the State. Health lab in North Carolina and they. run some tests I think they on Friday.

yeah they called us on a Friday and said. that they had gotten the report back. from the lab and that it had tested. positive and what they find is basically. an incredibly high level of lead in this. applesauce they forward that to the FDA. which quickly turns around and works. with the company that made it to issue a. recall it was just so nice to have like. a resolution like we know where this is. coming from now and we don't have to.

drive ourselves crazy in this constant. nightmare it's nice to have an. answer and so millions of these packets. that were sold at Dollar Tree under the. name wabana and also it's Schnucks. Market and Weiss Market grocery stores. under the store brand those are all. recalled. wow and then the FDA tries to figure out. how this lead got into the applesauce in.

the first place and what do they find so. they pretty quickly narrow in on the. cinnamon in the. applesauce there's this known problem in. the spice industry where sometimes. people will add lead chromate powder to. sort of make the color pop H and and. what is lead chromate Christina lead. chromate is an orange yellow powder it's. still used in industrial applications. overseas and even though it's toxic.

sometimes people illegally add it to. spices especially with turmeric or curry. powder that sometimes this is poured in. to sort of bulk up the spices like a. drug dealer sort of cuts the cocaine. with flour or sugar or something H so. the FDA is realizing that could be what. was happening in Ecuador where this. applesauce was processed and officials. from Ecuador are able to trace the. cinnamon in the applesauce up the supply.

chain to a spice grinder who they think. is. responsible got it so the. FDA suspects that somebody grinding. cinnamon is adding lead chromate to it. basically to make more money on the. production of that cinnamon exactly and. then it went to the company that made. the applesauce which shipped it off to. the US landed in the ports of Baltimore.

and Miami and ended up right on grocery. shelves to be handed to American infants. and toddlers H and how many children. Christina ended up consuming this lead. poisoned. applesauce we know the kids in 44 States. had this applesauce mhm the CDC has said. that about 468 kids consume this app. applesauce and had high levels of lead.

in their blood the median level of lead. in their blood was about six times. higher than what we saw with the Flint. lead and Water Crisis about a decade ago. wow yeah and as far as how many kids. total it could be so many more there's. probably plenty of parents who didn't. have a blood screening who didn't. connect it to the applesauce and there's. certainly others that didn't meet the. case definition by the time this was. discovered.

which you know required a certain level. of lead in the blood okay so at the very. least nearly. 500 very small children. were consuming this contaminated. applesauce and it's discovered that. their blood is filled with lead that's. the very best case scenario yeah this is. one of the worst toxic exposures of us. kids in decades and this Christina is. where you and the times come in right.

that's right I cover the FDA which has a. big infrastructure to protect our food. supply and so I wanted to understand how. this occurred so I teamed up with. another reporter will Fitz Gibbon who. works for a nonprofit called the. examination it's a global Health news. organization and we wound up getting. thousands of pages of documents from. Ecuador tracing their. investigation and interviewed a number.

of food safety experts to really figure. out how the system failed to. detect basically poisonous applesauce. going on to store shelves All Over. America right because ideally you. discover that applesauce is poisoned. with lead before it enters the food. supply system not after it's entered the. blood of little children.

exactly one expert I talked to basically. said in this situation the kids were. like the canary and the coal mine which. is not what you want to see happen in a. country with a sophisticated food safety. [Music]. system we'll be right. [Music]. back.

so once you all conduct this. investigation what do you find how did. our regulatory system allow this. applesauce to enter the US so in the US. the food safety system is pretty robust. there are boots on the ground in every. state routine inspections of food making. facilities and there's some precedent of. criminal prosecutions for big failures. so things like salmonella and Syria get.

discovered pretty. routinely the biggest fears have always. been about food that comes from outside. the US right where we know less you know. there can be things added for financial. gain there can be pesticides we don't. allow in the US and these fears really. grow in the late 2000s with a scandal in. China it's all about the chemical. melamine it can make protein levels look. normal in quality test if milk has been. watered down to cheat consumers people.

were adding this powder called melamine. to infant formula and Pet Food and what. it did was mimic protein powder but it. was also really toxic nervous parents. have Rush children the hospitals when it. was revealed baby formula was laced with. the industrial chemical Mel so six. babies died in China why didn't the. government test the formula more. carefully ask this mother hundreds of. thousands of babies overseas got sick.

and dogs and cats all around America got. sick and also died it's a black eye for. China's leadership consumer confidence. in Chinese Goods is falling to an. all-time low I remember this really well. and it was seen as a wake-up call that. there are some really bad actors in the. world when it comes to food and food. safety that's right so that creates some. impetus to change the way the US. overseas food that's imported from.

outside the US and that winds up sort of. coming together in 2011 with President. Obama signing the food safety. modernization act that does a number of. things one of them is to really try to. plug the holes in the system of imported. food that are meant to prevent really. what happened in China from happening. again in the. [Music]. US.

and how does the new law Envision that. working well it does two big things one. is there would be more overseas. inspections of food making facilities so. the FDA would actually send people into. the food plants they would take a look. at all their processes their procedures. their test results how they're making. the food safer to come into the us and. that was actually supposed to reach a. level of 19,000 inspections like that.

per year H so in short they wanted to. treat International inspections the way. that they treat domestic ones make sure. that there are a lot of them that. they're frequent and that they're likely. to catch things that's right the other. thing it does is it puts us import. companies companies that import food and. it essentially made them Guardians of. the food that comes in to the US and. they're not not really used to having.

these food safety duties but here they. came anyway and so what they're supposed. to do is look at the food they're. importing identify the specific risks. related to that food and make sure those. are dealt with and oftentimes they do. this with consultants and they're. required to hire Auditors to make sure. they're doing a good job of basically. eliminating risks and sometimes these. Auditors go overseas and inspect the.

facilities on their. behalf so on paper this looks like a. pretty tight ship something that can. keep the lead or the melamine out of the. US right and there's a redundancy at. play here from what you just said which. is the us is going to be sending out. inspectors itself to foreign food. manufacturing facilities and it's going. to be asking food importers to do their. own auditing of their suppliers so the.

thinking I'm sure is that between those. two something will be caught clearly. though that didn't happen in the case of. the applesauce so what did you learn. about why that is so the law didn't. quite work out as intended the number of. overseas inspections was supposed to. reach. 19,000 well that didn't come to pass. last year there were 1,200 inspections. and so that means FDA inspectors got to.

about 1% of the overseas food facilities. wow a tiny percentage oh yeah yeah and. when it came to the company in Ecuador. that made this applesauce company's. called Ostro food we found that the FDA. hadn't been in that facility since. 2019 and when they were there we don't. think at the time they were using. cinnamon and overall the FDA didn't find. any problems that they recommended.

fixing so I really want to pause on this. no one from the United States government. despite the Ambitions of this law had. visited the facility where this. applesauce was made in the last five. years so if there were any problems with. any product leaving those facilities and. headed for the US the US government had. no eyes and no ears on any of it not on. site no and when we took a look at the. second line of defense that's supposed.

to keep things like toxic applesauce out. of the US the importers we found out. thousands of them just never set up. programs to vet foreign food wow so they. hadn't taken up this Guardian role that. the government was trying to give them. in fact the FDA has issued about 3,400. citations to companies that weren't. doing this at all huh so in this. situation with the importers no one. would tell us exactly what happened with. the. applesauce but basically what we could.

piece together is that there was an. auditor sent out to the applesauce. making company in Ecuador late last year. and when they took a look around they. wound up giving this company a grade of. A+ even as there are headlines all. across the United States about kids. being poisoned by lead tainted. applesauce H so in the case of the. applesauce you're saying the auditor. working on behalf of an importer. whose job it is now to protect us.

consumers ends up issuing a pretty much. perfect rating to the maker of this. applesauce even though of course we know. that the applesauce is contaminated. suggesting that that auditor was clearly. not doing their job very well right and. a lot of the experts we talked to said. this is kind of an honor System and when. they say that they're talking about the. fact that all these companies have the. discretion to choose which risks to.

worry about in this case with this audit. it looks like the concern was salmonella. so this lead that's widespread well. known at this point was a non- concern. as far as that audit went Christina I'm. curious in this American System what. you've described so far are the. responsibilities of. inspections overseas whether that's done. by the FDA at a manufacturing site or by. an reporter who's supposed to hire an. auditor to go to the.

facility but once International Food. reaches the US is there ever a moment. where the American system kicks in and. tests food opens up a package or a pouch. of apples sauce and tests it you know. there is there are tests that occur at. the border at the ports of entry and the. inspectors will open up you know a pouch. of applesauce and test it but the number. of these tests has actually gone down.

it's really fallen in half over the last. decade and at the same time the number. of imported food products has gone way. up it's really at an all-time high just. down a hair from where it was in. 2022 so in essence the Border searches. those are really like looking for a. needle in a hay stack mhm based on your. reporting I wonder if you have concluded. that what happened here is the fault of. a poorly constructed law or it's lack.

enforcement or if this is just the. reality that in a global food supply. chain with so many elements and. manufacturers and. Facilities that it's just going to be. hard to. detect something like a malevolent. cinnamon supplier you know who adds a. terrible toxin to.

food I mean yeah I think in the best of. systems it's easy to Envision how. something could slip through but this is. such a close parallel to what our nation. really grappled with almost 15 years ago. in creating this new system of. inspections and Audits and what our. investigation found really was that the. system's not living up to those. requirements at all the inspections. aren't anywhere close to where they were.

envisioned to be the audits that were. supposed to be happening in many cases. aren't happening at all right you're. saying even the best of systems might. not catch something but we don't have. the best of systems we don't even have. the system that the law requires exactly. so I want to return to the family that. we met at the start of this. conversation how worried are they about. what this Leed poisoning will mean for.

those two very small children and what. do we understand to be the prognosis for. those two. kids well for all the families the. concern is that lead lives in the body. forever it's in the bones and your kid. has a growth spurt and some of that lead. can come out there are different you. know junctures in your life where the. lead can come out so there are lifelong. ramification. and for Nicole and Thomas the family we.

met from North. Carolina the health system takes this. very seriously so they've been provided. with nutritional counseling they've been. provided with Specialists to help the. kids meet their developmental. Milestones but there is a sense that. things will never be quite the same for. them they can't just walk into the. grocery store toss things into the cart. blly. without having a second thought after.

what happened to their young. children there will be a lingering sense. I would imagine that the system really. did fail. [Music]. them well Christina thank you very. much thank you. Michael. [Music].

we'll be right. back here's what else you need to. another day one of life's most. underappreciated. talents is to know when it's time to. move on to Life's next chapter on. Wednesday Senator Mitch McConnell of. Kentucky the leader of the Senate. Republican for the past two decades said.

he would give up that role at the end of. the year during a speech on the senate. floor announcing the decision McConnell. acknowledged that his policies. especially his view that supporting. Ukraine is essential to US National. Security are increasingly out of step. with the rest of his party and its de. facto Presidential nominee Donald Trump. believe me I know the politics within my. party at this particular moment in time.

I have many faults misunderstanding. politics is not one. of and in a stunning admission of. financial strain Trump said he could. offer a bond of only 100 million toward. a Manhattan court judgment of. 450 million that he must pay in the. coming weeks if that bond is not. accepted Trump said he may need to sell. some of his properties to come up with.

more. cash the admission made in a court. filing highlights the degree to which. the $450 million penalty punishment for. a yearslong financial fraud has created. a cash crunch for the former. [Music]. president today's episode was produced. by Alex Stern relle Banja and and a win. it was edited by Liz o Balin contains.

original music by Maran Lozano and R. nisto and was engineered by Alyssa. Moxley our theme music is by Jim. brunberg and Ben lansberg of. [Music]. wonderly. that's it for the daily I'm Michael.

borro see you. [Music]. tomorrow.