High Lead Levels Found At Ecuador Applesauce Plant

The Washington Post reports:

A U.S. inspection of a plant in Ecuador that manufactured pouches of contaminated applesauce linked to at least 125 cases of suspected lead poisoning in children found “extremely high” levels of the metal in a key ingredient: cinnamon.

The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that samples of cinnamon from the plant that were tested contained levels of lead more than 2,000 times higher than proposed international limits for lead in food. Federal officials confirmed that they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional.

However, the FDA said that it had “limited authority” over foreign suppliers that do not directly ship their products to the United States and that its investigation was continuing.

Read the full article.

“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,” FDA Dep. Comm’r Jones said. “They thought it was going to end up in places that did not have the ability to detect something like this.” https://t.co/79mj8PUY9V

— Jonathan Moore (@JRileyMoore) December 19, 2023