|
|
November 14, 2003/Cheshvan 19 5764, Vol. 56, No. 8
Baby-food scare in Israel, U.S.
DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Frenzied families rush to hospitals. Grim-faced scientists call news conferences. Police mount nighttime raids. In Israel, the Mossad launches a probe of a possible international terrorist connection.
No, it's not another outbreak of the deadly SARS virus.
It's a baby-food scandal.
Panic and precautions followed revelations this week that a popular kosher baby-food formula was defective, implicated in Israel in the deaths of three babies and the hospitalization of at least another 17.
Israel's Health Ministry ordered the product, called Remedia Super Soya 1, removed from store shelves and issued a nationwide alert. More than 10,000 worried parents called hotlines operated by the baby-food company and Israel's health maintenance organizations.
Bearing the kosher certification of Israel's fervently Orthodox Eida Charedit, the product is marketed in Israel's fervently Orthodox neighborhoods.
In Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in the United States where the kosher formula is sold, ambulances drove through the streets warning parents by loudspeaker - on the Sabbath - about the defect.
"How could this sort of thing happen in our country? Why did no one check?" one Israeli columnist, Michal Gurevitch, asked in the daily Ma'ariv newspaper.
Israeli lab tests found Remedia lacking in Vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, whose deficiency in infants can cause vomiting, diarrhea, seizures and lack of appetite. The resulting symptoms of encephalopathy or beriberi can cause irreparable damage and death. Israeli experts said the vitamin may have been further thinned by natural decay in the formula.
B1, vital for the develop-ment of the central nervous system in babies, was listed as an ingredient on the packages of the formula, a kosher, soy-based milk substitute popular in Israel's Orthodox communities.
The German company that makes Remedia, Humana, at first denied responsibility for the faulty product, standing by the nutritional integrity of its formula.
But company officials ad-mitted Nov. 11 that the baby food contained less than 10 percent of the quantity of the vitamin that was on the label.
"What we are looking at here is an unfortunate chain of events," said Albert Grosse Frie, a spokesman for the Humana Milchunion group.
Two class-action lawsuits in Israel already have been filed against Remedia, which is majority owned by the American H.J. Heinz Co.
Heinz tried to distance itself from the scandal.
"We don't run" Remedia, said Debbie Foster, vice president of corporate communication for Heinz. "We're a shareholder com-pany with Remedia. It's a very sorrowful situation. It's really quite tragic."
The Shin Bet internal security service and the Mossad were alerted to the possibility of sabotage, raising fears of international terrorism.
Meanwhile, a Health Ministry delegation flew to Germany to inspect the plant where the formula is made. Israel's state prosecutor, Edna Arbel, authorized a police investigation of Remedia on Nov. 10.
An estimated 5,000 Israeli infants have used the formula in recent months. After the revelations, clinics in Israel reported a rush on their emergency B-1 injections.
In New York on Nov. 8, the Hatzolah Volunteer Ambu-lance Corps dispatched its drivers on the Jewish Sabbath to patrol the streets of Orthodox neighborhoods to warn parents. Because it was a life-or-death matter, the Sabbath prohibition against driving did not apply, explained Hatzolah's presi-dent, Heshey Jacob.
The handful of stores in Brooklyn that carried Re-media products removed them after New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a public warning. The de-partment sent a health alert to physicians throughout the city and a news release.
"We have not yet seen cases of illness linked with this product in New York City, and we do not yet conclusively know whether Remedia has been used here," Com-missioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said in the news release.
The New York Jewish Week's Steve Lipman and the Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh's Stephanie Siegel contributed to this report.
|
