CUSCO, Peru (Reuters) - Peruvian authorities began investigating Saturday how at least 26 schoolchildren, some as young as four, died in a remote Andean village after eating breakfast cereal apparently contaminated by insecticide.

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Subject:   Just a Few More "Registered" Deaths---
Date:       Thu, 28 Oct 1999 15:50:09 -0400
From:     Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To:     Lyndon Hawkins <hawkins@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>
 

Lyndon, I thought you might like to read another article on the health effects caused by using another of your dangerous "registered" insecticide poisons-----

Updated 12:25 AM ET October 24, 1999
By Juan Paliza
CUSCO, Peru (Reuters) - Peruvian authorities began investigating Saturday how at least 26 schoolchildren, some as young as four, died in a remote Andean village after eating breakfast cereal apparently contaminated by insecticide.

Doctors at a hospital in the historic town of Cusco were fighting to save 20 more children who collapsed after consuming cookies and cereal mixed with milk at school Friday. Two of the children were in serious condition, the hospital said. While the official toll was 26, the school's director and villagers told Reuters by telephone they knew of about four more deaths -- some of whom died as they walked home.

Within half an hour of a communal breakfast for about 60 students aged up to 14 in the village of Huasac, children started retching with stomach cramps and collapsing around the school, witnesses said. "The kids were screaming, vomiting and grabbing their bellies.  Some were dead, others were writhing on the grass and still more were on the  school patio. We had no idea what to do," a sobbing village woman said in her native Qechua language. "About 20 minutes after eating the breakfast, the children started convulsing, holding their stomachs and writhing around with pain," school director Isaac Villena said.

In the chaos -- the worst tragedy involving children in Peru for years  -- those still healthy tried to lead ill pupils to their mud-brick homes but some died on the way, villagers said.  Local police and doctors, who found traces of insecticide in victims' stomachs, said they suspected the food was contaminated by being prepared in containers previously used to mix insecticide for fumigating crops. President Alberto Fujimori sent a ministerial-level commission to Cusco to investigate how the children came to eat "food apparently mixed with a fatal insecticide," according to a Government Palace statement.

The breakfast of cereal, milk and cookies was government-donated and in part prepared by the children themselves.  "Some children told me they noticed a strange taste in the breakfast," Holguer Lovon, director of the Cusco hospital, said.  Doctors said they expected more ill children to arrive Saturday from the remote Paucartambo area around Huasac, some hours by rough road from Cusco.

Well Lyndon, do you know whatever happened to all of the accidentally  contaminated (chlorpyrifos) breakfast cereal we had in this country?  When are you going to allow the use of safe and effective unregistered alternatives to your dangerous "legally regisered" pesticide poisons in California?

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten.

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