Students Mistake Poison for Candy

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, January 14, 2011

Seven San Francisco middle school students were taken to hospitals Thursday after ingesting small amounts of rat poison they found on top of a classroom filing cabinet, thinking the single blue cube was candy, fire officials said.

The Martin Luther King Jr. students, who showed no symptoms other than fear, were transported to three local hospitals, but were not expected to suffer any harmful consequences, said Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge.

Talmadge said one of the students found the small cube and took a little nibble and told classmates it tasted like a cookie. Six others, boys and girls ranging in age from 10 to 12, then licked or bit pieces of the 1.5-inch cube of poison and either swallowed or spit it out.

School Kitchens Flunk Health Inspections

By: Helena Bottemiller

FoodSafetyNews.com

Oct 14, 2010

More than half of the school kitchens in the Philadelphia School District failed the last round of health inspections, according to state records analyzed by Philadelphia Daily News.

The worst offenders appeared to be charter schools, which were 66 percent out of compliance, compared with the 53 percent failure rate across the district.  According to The Daily News, some schools on the list had as 20 significant violations, ranging from "mouse feces found on cooking utensils to food being stored next to chemicals."

Students Sickened by Odor

The Journal Gazette
Fort Wayne, IN

A mysterious bleach-like odor caused the evacuation of DeKalb High School on Friday as well as the hospitalization of more than a dozen students.

The Waterloo Fire Department was called to the school at 2:44 p.m. after people began to notice a strange odor and some students had trouble breathing.

A school official said the odor was coming from the art room and an adjoining hallway, according to the fire department.

The Auburn Fire Department’s Hazmat Team was called to check the building, but the unit could not find the source of the odor.

Some students complained not only of trouble breathing but also of dizziness.

For original posting click HERE.

Mequon School Closes For Mold

Mequon School Latest to Close Due to Mold

Posted Tuesday September 7, 2010 

MEQUON, Wis. (WTAQ) - Another Wisconsin school has been hit with mold.

The Oriole Lane Elementary School in Mequon is closed Tuesday, after officials found mold in the building.

An air quality expert tells WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee that at least 30 Wisconsin schools have had some kind of mold problem – and he blames it on the hot and damp summer. He says it takes a thorough cleaning to get rid of it.

At the Stone Bank school near Oconomowoc, crews worked around the clock for 4 days to remove the mold they had. Schools in Middleton and Crivitz were also among those losing class time early in this school year.

Mequon school officials could not say how long Oriole Lane would be closed due to the latest mold discovery. 

For original posting visit:  www.whbl.com/news/articles/201

Food Allergy Concerns on the Rise

Why are food allergies on the rise?

By: Elizabeth Landau, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Children's Hospital Boston has seen an increase in ER visits from allergic reactions to foods
• A study speculates gut bacteria has something to do with food allergies
• Another idea is that children need to get exposed to common allergens earlier in life

(CNN) -- Two-year-old Ethan Wily had a cold recently, so at first it wasn't surprising that he started coughing last week after eating some pistachio gelato.

But he started coughing up mucus, and then gasping for air. His parents gave him an antihistamine, but it didn't stop the reaction. By the time the boy's parents brought him to their local hospital, he could barely breathe.

"His face was really swollen. He looked like an alien," said Ethan's father, Preston Wily of Lehi, Utah. "We didn't have any idea an allergy could be so bad."

He said the child had shown only a somewhat mild reaction to peanuts before this.

It seems like more and more children in the U.S. are developing food allergies, and there's data to back that up. The number of kids with food allergies went up 18 percent from 1997 to 2007, according to the U.S.