The food safety agency continues to investigate dozens of incidents of lead poisoning in U.S. children linked to three brands of cinnamon applesauce pouches.

Tainted cinnamon applesauce pouches that have sickened scores of children in the U.S. may have been purposefully contaminated with lead, according to FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones.

“We’re still in the midst of our investigation. But so far all of the signals we’re getting lead to an intentional act on the part of someone in the supply chain and we’re trying to sort of figure that out,” Jones said in an exclusive interview. The pouches found to be contaminated were sold under three brands — Weis, WanaBana and Schnucks — that are all linked to a manufacturing facility in Ecuador. The FDA says it’s conducting an inspection of that facility.

“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,” Jones said. “They thought it was going to end up in places that did not have the ability to detect something like this.”

  • _lilith@lemmy.world
    141·
    11 months ago

    All these say no sugar added. Lead tastes sweet. So I guess that counts as an alternative sweetener?

    • butterflyattack@lemmy.world
      81·
      11 months ago

      TBF the Romans used to use lead as a sweetener all the time. While it can’t have done them much good it can’t have been immediately fatal or they’d have stopped. If it was intended as a sweetener in this case someone must have seriously fucked up the dosage. And I’d have thought they’d go for cheaper and easier ways to make the product taste sweeter, like aspartame or saccharine.