Here are jumps to each part of this investigative series, which is presented complete on this Web page:
Also available on the Web:
The
Orange County Register
Saturday, April 24, 2004
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Raspberries from Guatemala gave thousands of people nationwide severe stomach pains.
A Canadian cow sparked concern that U.S. hamburgers might ravage people's brains.
On Sunday, you'll hear about a new health threat: lead in Mexican candy. "Toxic Treats," a six-part Register investigation, follows the candy trail from Mexico to homes all over Southern California.
The series illuminates one slice of our increasingly complex food supply. We take for granted that everything we eat has been checked and declared safe. The series shows such faith is unfounded.
The amount of food imported into the United States has more than doubled to $50 billion in the last 20 years.
Now, one of every 10 things we eat comes from another country. The widening gap between the farm and the fridge keeps food prices low by taking advantage of cheap labor and economies of scale. It allows us to eat healthier food by making fresh produce, meat and seafood available year-round.
The gap also opens our kitchens to new dangers. Our food passes through more hands and more machines, often in developing nations. Each link in the chain presents the potential for contamination and makes it more difficult to trace problems to their sources.
Outbreaks of illness are rare. In the United States, we are much more likely to die of the effects of eating too much food than from eating contaminated food.
And the zest we get from international food choices - sushi, sauerkraut, sopa de albondigas - may outweigh the risks of an occasional bad batch of imported beef.
But there are hidden threats. On the global scene, one of the most insidious is lead, a toxic metal that can slow the minds and bodies of children in their most vulnerable years. Lead has largely disappeared as a health threat in food made here. It persists as a problem in other countries - countries where we, in effect, are shopping for our groceries.
Over the past two years, The Orange County Register investigated the Mexican candy business. Just as sauerkraut, sushi and sun-dried tomato pesto worked their way onto the American menu, candies with names like Tama Roca and Super Palerindas have found homes on U.S. grocery store shelves.
Register reporters analyzed thousands of documents, conducted hundreds of tests and interviewed people in all aspects of the candy business. We found that many candies contain lead. And we found that the food-safety system is not positioned to protect us.
Mexican candy makers almost never are inspected by regulators there, and their products seldom are tested by U.S. health officials. The tests for lead are costly and time- consuming. Most importantly, the health effects of lead aren't readily apparent. The system is set up to react to immediate, obvious threats.
The most immediate threat weighing on the minds of the agents of food protection in post-Sept. 11 America is bioterrorism. Food experts say it's too soon to tell if the stepped-up hunt for anthrax and smallpox will help or hurt the overall goal of food safety. One thing is clear: The contents of our shopping carts are changing faster than the mechanisms to protect food from threats, intentional or accidental.
The National Academy of Sciences convened a commission of food experts from government, academia and private enterprise in 1998 to perform a top-to-bottom review of food hazards. It devised seven recommendations. Trade on-site inspec tions for more and better food testing, for example. Make the 12 overlapping agencies that look at food responsible to one official.
Six years later, none of the recommendations has been adopted.
One commission member was Marsha Cohen, a UC Hastings law professor who has served as a staff attorney for Consumers Union and president of the California State Board of Pharmacy. She put the current state of food protection into perspective.
"Our food-safety statutes were written in a whole different era," Cohen said. "A lot of things that can kill us you can't necessarily see just by looking, and we're not using the right tools to help us find them."
Mexican candy - a seemingly harmless indulgence - can contain a poison that is especially dangerous to children.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
The Orange County Register
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The poison arrives in an ice cream truck, "Happy Birthday to You" crackling from a single speaker wired to the roof.
On this street in Anaheim, the neighborhood kids drop their bikes and balls and make a beeline for their mothers to beg for money.
Kids dart toward the truck from between parked cars. Moms give a quick thought to the dangers of traffic.
Soledad Lopez, a Mexican immigrant who is as cautious as any mom on this block, never once considers the dangers inside the truck.
The ice cream man rests his elbows on the counter. Lopez's daughter Diana, a pigtailed 2-year-old, scans the bright pictures of treats. She doesn't want Drumsticks, Fudgsicles or Bomb Pops. Diana wants Mexican candy.
Lopez has no idea that some of the imported candy on this truck is so laced with lead it can cause memory loss, behavioral problems and kidney damage if her daughter eats it regularly.
The California Department of Health Services has documented more than 1,500 tests of Mexican candy since 1993 - and one in four of those results has come up high for lead.
But the state has withheld this information from parents like Lopez, children like Diana and vendors like the ice cream man.
By the time the truck rolls down Diana's street in the spring of 2000, only a handful of people in state offices in Oakland and Sacramento are aware that the little girl's favorite candy has tested high for lead seven times.
Until today, the state's testing records have not been made public.
Orange County Register reporters spent two years investigating the problem: from the chili mills of Aguascalientes, where dangerous levels of lead exist in key candy ingredients; to the makeshift factories of Guadalajara, where unsafe manufacturing practices are routine; to the dirt-floor poverty of Santa Fe de la Laguna, where a village has become contaminated making packages for candy.
But perhaps the most troubling reason lead-tainted candy keeps poisoning children is that government regulators do next to nothing to stop it.
The Register obtained federal and state records that show:
• 112 brands of candy - most coming from Mexico - registered dangerous levels of lead over the past decade. In 101 cases, no action was taken against the candy makers. The results were kept confidential, and the candy remained on store shelves.
• Repeated high tests aren't enough to set off the state's warning system. California health officials issued seven public-health advisories for candy but have done nothing about 37 brands that tested high multiple times. One, the Tama Roca lollipop, tested high 28 times with no action.
• Even when preliminary tests reveal candy samples with dangerous lead levels, regulators haven't always followed up with more testing.
• The state makes no effort to notify candy companies in Mexico when their brands test high enough to harm a child. Candy maker after candy maker said they had no idea regulators had found lead in their products.
The mishandling of this public-health threat has left supermarkets, candy shops, mom-and-pop stores and ice cream trucks as unknowing distributors of toxic treats.
Register reporters bought 74 brands on the state's list of lead-laden candies in Southern California stores - from small ethnic markets in Santa Ana and Anaheim to places like Food 4 Less, Smart & Final, Ralphs, Vons and Gigante. Most of these same candies are widely available from the Oregon border to Mexico.
The Register tested 180 candy and wrapper samples and found high lead in 32 percent of the brands - including some brands regulators haven't bothered to test. Candies were counted as high if they met or exceeded the state's level of concern for lead.
"Children are eating poison," said Leticia Ayala, who works for the San Diego- based Environmental Health Coalition, a nonprofit group that has urged the state to better regulate Mexican candies. "They can't just find that there is lead in candies and sit on the data. ... Parents need to know."
The Mexican government has had little success curbing the problem on its side of the border, and the country's top health official downplayed the dangers of candy in public statements made earlier this month. Other Mexican health officials say they have been trying to regulate candy makers over the past few years - including testing candies and wrappers - and believe that the situation is improving. However, government resources are limited, and many candy makers operate without oversight.
In the United States, no one has a complete grasp of the problem. Officials from several other states where Mexican candy is sold said they conduct few, if any, candy tests. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of children at risk for lead poisoning are not screened by doctors each year, including at least 100,000 in California.
California is seen as a leader in testing candy. In 2002, the state worked with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to publish a groundbreaking report on the effects of lead-tainted treats.
But the state hasn't capitalized on its findings. Instead of a methodical effort to track bad candy, the health department keeps poor records of its own tests, doesn't log results from other agencies, and discourages county health workers from sending more candy samples for testing, records show.
Just last month - after repeated questioning from the Register - the state issued its first health advisory about candy in nearly three years, targeting Chaca Chaca, a popular treat made of apple pulp and chili powder.
But problems with Chaca Chaca were not new. The candy tested high 17 of 38 times from February 1998 to February 2003, with no state or federal action.
And the cases of lead-poisoned children connected to candy have piled up.
The state has estimated that as many as 15 percent of children in California who are poisoned by lead have eaten Mexican candy. That would mean about 3,000 children during the last three years.
State health workers say that regulating the fast- growing $620 million Mexican candy industry is fraught with problems because they have too few resources, they have no jurisdiction in Mexico, and the amount of lead in candy varies from batch to batch. The state also maintains that there are still bigger battles to fight with lead paint.
"We have a lot more responsibilities than looking for lead in candy," said Jim Waddell, chief of the state health department's Food and Drug Branch.
That does little to help children like Diana.
All spring, the 2-year-old leans into the ice cream truck and points to her favorite - Pelon Pelo Rico, a sugary candy with a chili kick.
Her mother opens the wrapper and places the poison into Diana's tiny hand.
HISTORY OF HAZARDS
Lead has been a documented health hazard for centuries - often called a silent epidemic because symptoms can go unnoticed.
By the 1930s and '40s, widespread childhood lead- poisoning cases prompted the paint industry to reduce lead in its products.
It wasn't until the 1970s that advocates and lawmakers launched an extraordinary public-health campaign nationwide with new laws and public awareness.
Lead was banned from house paint in 1978 and from gasoline in 1986. Today, lead- paint disclosures accompany the sale of all homes, and automobiles have been engineered to run on cleaner fuel.
As a result, the percentage of U.S. children with elevated blood-lead levels dropped from 88 percent in the 1970s to 2 percent in 2000. Statewide, the numbers have dropped dramatically from previous decades. But last year stricter reporting requirements went into effect, and the overall number of lead-poisoned children rose.
In Orange County, the number of lead-poisoned children has risen four out of the past five years. In 2003, candy was suspected as a source of lead poisoning nearly as often as paint, county records show.
About 90 percent of lead- poisoning victims in Orange County are Latino children. Statewide, the number is 75 percent.
Even at low levels, lead can impair intelligence. Researchers at Cornell University found a 7.4-point drop in IQ among children who were exposed to less lead than Diana.
"There cannot be a reasonable justification for having lead in children's candy," said Richard L. Canfield, a Cornell professor who helped direct the 2003 study. "It simply should not be detectable, and, if it is, we need to find out the source, find out how it's getting in there and take the appropriate measures to get rid of it."
KEEPING CHILDREN SAFE
A multilayered group of health-care workers and regulators tries to protect children from lead.
On the front lines are doctors and nurses, who screen at-risk children during annual physicals.
When they find high lead levels in the blood, doctors classify that child as a lead-poisoning case. County health workers then converge on the home, looking for the source of lead.
Investigators gather up likely culprits - paint chips, ceramic pots and candies - and send them to labs.
The state health department oversees the lead-prevention effort. Twelve years ago, the department created the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, a $20 million-per-year program based in Oakland.
The prevention branch works with another arm of the health department - the state Food and Drug Branch - to conduct tests and issue health advisories and recalls.
The job of testing candy has fallen to the state mostly because no one else does it. Part of a network of federal agencies responsible for the safety of the nation's food supply, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does only limited testing of candy.
When dangerous lead levels are detected, advisories are supposed to be issued and bad candy is supposed to be ordered off shelves.
There have been success stories. Candy in clay pots - tamarind jam contained in a tiny ceramic tea cup - is harder to find since the state warned the public about four of these brands. In some cases, the state has induced candy makers to change manufacturing methods.
But in lead prevention, breakdowns overwhelm successes.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
The health department has failed to establish clear standards for dealing with unsafe levels of lead. The state considers it a concern when candy registers 0.2 parts per million lead but rarely acts when candies surpass this threshold.
State officials have been reluctant to take candies off store shelves, saying it is impossible to single out candy as the source of lead without dogged follow-up testing and repeated high results.
The Register found that regulators often don't even try to build a case against candy.
Seventeen brands tested high in their only tests, but there were no follow-ups, records show.
Ten of Mexico's biggest candy makers - with brand names such as Montes Tomy, Limon 7 and Pico Diana - have had repeated high lead tests but have not faced federal or state sanctions. One candy, Lucas Limon, tested high seven times out of seven tests in federal labs, but neither the state nor FDA acted.
The FDA has been even more unwilling than state regulators to go after candy makers.
"These are kind of borderline levels that we're seeing in the candy," Terry Troxell, FDA's director of the Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages, said in March. "You can imagine that if we took action you would hear from Mexico that we're being too stringent."
But lead levels found in candy are not borderline, the Register found.
More than 80 percent of the state and federal high test results show levels so dangerous that eating one piece could push a child past the FDA's recommended daily limit for lead.
Shortly after Troxell was asked about the agency's history of inaction, the FDA issued a statement April 9 telling parents to avoid Mexican candies. The message mentioned no candies by name.
POISONING CASES MOUNT
In California, state health officials have no hard-and- fast rules for taking action - and no clear strategy.
The history of Pelon Pelo Rico, Diana's favorite candy, underscores the inadequate regulatory efforts.
The candy tested high 11 of 59 times in government laboratories since 1994. It was suspected in a string of poisoning cases along the way, records show. But parents received no warning.
In 1994, investigators suspected that Pelon Pelo Rico poisoned two children in Los Angeles County. Then, in 1999, it turned up in connection with a lead-poisoned San Joaquin County child.
Diana began eating the candy in 2000. She ate it for a year before she was diagnosed as a poisoning victim. After investigators ruled out the usual suspects of lead paint and tainted soil, Pelon Pelo Rico taken from her home was tested in 2001. It was two times higher than the state guideline for lead.
That same year, tainted Pelon Pelo Rico was pulled from the home of a poisoned Sacramento boy. Investigators told the boy's mother candy was the likely cause.
To date, no action has been taken against the maker of Pelon Pelo Rico.
Joe Courtney, chief of care management and research for the lead-prevention branch, said there isn't enough evidence to prove Pelon Pelo Rico is dangerous because it often tests clean.
"You can't really look at Pelon Pelo Rico and say they have a problem," Courtney said.
Company officials say the candy is safe.
"I don't worry about lead in Pelon Pelo Rico," said Javier Arroyo, a spokesman for Grupo Lorena, the company that makes the candy, explaining that its own tests haven't shown high lead.
The candy has proved vexing. After the state conducted its tests, the Register tested 10 samples of Pelon Pelo Rico, and all were clean. Arroyo said the company has been refining its manufacturing process and has made more changes in response to questions from the Register.
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When pressed about how many high tests on a single candy brand it would take for the state to issue an advisory, Pat Kennelly, chief of the food-inspection unit, said he would need around 90 percent high tests from several parts of the state. Later, he admitted the state has no real threshold.
But parents say the rate of high tests for candies like Pelon Pelo Rico merits more aggressive action.
"They (state officials) aren't doing anything," said Maria Perez of Sacramento, whose son Jesus was poisoned in 2001. His blood-lead level shot up to nearly three times the federal guideline after regularly eating Pelon Pelo Rico and other Mexican candies. "If the candy has lead, they should make sure it doesn't come here. ... What else has to be done?"
It's not that simple to penalize candy makers, Kennelly said.
"If we don't have that statutory threshold met because we don't have consistently high lead levels in the products, then you've got to test every single (sample) that you pick up at the store," Kennelly said. "And the resources to do that just really are nonexistent."
ANAHEIM GIRL POISONED
Pelon Pelo Rico doesn't look like poison.
Its plastic dispenser has a picture of a wild-eyed cartoon figure in a grass-green skirt. It tastes like someone spilled hot sauce in a sugary fruit roll. When Diana pushes the bottom of the dispenser, out oozes tasty goo.
The little Anaheim girl in the pigtails sucks on the candy like a pacifier.
She can't taste the lead. But by eating enough of it over time, it can travel from her bloodstream to her bones, then to her soft tissue, where it can wreak havoc.
Diana begs her mother every day when she hears "Happy Birthday" tinkling from the ice cream truck. Two or three times a week, Soledad Lopez, the conscientious 18-year-old mom, takes her daughter to the street and buys candy. With no idea of the danger, Lopez feeds the poison to her daughter.
Then, during a 2001 doctor visit required by her health coverage, Diana's blood-lead level registers 25 micrograms, 2 1/2 times higher than the danger level set by the CDC. The news comes during a phone conversation with a nurse at Diana's doctor's office.
Like a scene from a science-fiction movie, white-suited health workers with protective masks show up at Lopez's Anaheim apartment. They scrape paint off walls. They brush up dust from window sills. They confiscate candy from the cupboards.
Diana is in danger.
Worse for Lopez, the source of the danger is somewhere in their home. Cesar Perez, Diana's father, feels pangs of guilt. A furniture painter, he thinks he must have contaminated Diana by touching her with his paint-stained hands.
Perez thinks his daughter is going to die.
STATE STONEWALLING
The state lead-prevention branch is ill-equipped to deal with nontraditional lead sources such as candy, e-mails and memos between health officials show.
Local health workers are discouraged from sending candy for testing after it is confiscated from homes of lead-poisoned children. Other health workers are stonewalled.
In one 1994 case involving a Santa Ana child, an Orange County health worker noted the problem in dealing with a counterpart in Sacramento:
"She said that she discourages our focus on the candies and that if we have the state lab test candy, it will delay the testing of soil and paint, which she considers more important," Dianne Martinez wrote in her notes.
Martinez, who honed her powers of observation as a jail inspector, persisted and got the state to test three lollipops found in the home. All were high in lead.
The state urged other county health workers not to send candy, saying there were no resources to test more.
But candy samples collected by county workers kept coming, a backlog of untested candies accumulated and calls from the field went unheeded, records and interviews show.
In July 2002, Sigrid Anderson, a Fresno County health worker, sent a fax to the state with a picture of Chaca Chaca, a candy named for the sound a train makes.
Anderson's fax contained one simple question: "Is this candy hot?"
The answer should have been yes. State tests had shown the candy to be high in lead eight times since 1998. But Anderson didn't hear that answer - even after the candy registered high nine more times in the next few months in state and federal tests. A state toxicologist told regulators in a June 2003 e-mail that Chaca Chaca proves to be "nearly always positive from virtually every source we test."
Nine more months passed before the state took action.
With dozens of other candies, silence and confusion were the standard operating procedure.
In November 2002, a lead-prevention branch clerk used exclamation points to punctuate an e-mail to her boss about the barrage of candy-related calls she was getting from around the state. One health worker called from Sonoma County.
"He read me a list of the candies to be stuffed in a piñata, and two-thirds of them were ones we have tested and have come back elevated," the clerk wrote. "I don't know what kind of information I should be giving out."
Two months later, Jeff Lane, an Orange County environmental-health specialist, found two other candy brands in the homes of lead-poisoned children.
After county tests showed the candy to be more than twice state guidelines for lead, he asked the state for advice. He called. He e-mailed. He wrote a letter.
The state hasn't answered.
"I just want to know what we should do," Lane said.
One of the candies Lane found, Montes Damy, had tested high before.
COMPANIES IN THE DARK
Internal e-mails and interviews with state officials show a health department paralyzed by fear of lawsuits, although no candy company has sued the state.
"The company will come back with their own test results and sue us," Courtney said.
In a May 2001 e-mail, Courtney warned other state health workers to keep five pages of high-lead candy results confidential. Courtney noted that he already had been contacted by attorneys.
The lawyers for Pelon Pelo Rico were among them, records show.
"I would like to stress that these data are still in draft form and are not for further distribution," Courtney wrote. The state never did release the results.
This fear explains in part why state and federal regulators fail to communicate with the companies that make tainted candies.
One company, Dulces Vero, had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to find out about FDA testing of its own products. The Register found 49 cases where Vero candies tested high in government labs.
Nearly every company contacted by the Register said they were surprised to hear their products contained dangerous lead levels.
Virginia-based food giant Mars Inc. bought Mexican brand Lucas in 2001. Mars says it is so committed to food safety that it doesn't even allow lead-based materials into its factories and requires suppliers to certify that all ingredients arefree of lead.
Mars officials said they learned from the Register that Lucas candies had tested high at least 17 times before Mars bought the Lucas brand.
"I was quite surprised," said Tim Anh, director of quality services for Masterfoods USA, Mars' snack-food subsidiary. "We know the FDA is monitoring this category of products, and we would have suspected if there was an issue they would have put us in detention. ... We have no issues. The product just goes right through."
CANDY A LOW PRIORITY
Courtney, the state's point man for the lead program, has been a passionate advocate for kids and, at times, ineffective.
He has seen the prevention branch chipping away at a problem that might take a sledgehammer to beat.
He works without a secretary in a department filled with temporary employees and interns. He spends 5 percent of his time on candy.
When the lead-prevention branch opened, candy wasn't on the forms nurses used to evaluate environmental hazards.
"Nobody was even looking at candy until we started testing it," Courtney said.
Courtney told the Register in earlier interviews that it was unacceptable if even one in 10 candies tested high. He has pushed for more testing, and he has tried to get more funding.
In an e-mail to a counterpart in April 2002, Courtney expressed frustration that candy tests were not being confirmed quickly. He wanted to use a private laboratory to alleviate the backlog and was told no.
"The children who are being affected are those who don't need additional disadvantages in their lives," Courtney said.
But Courtney also has dismissed positive lead tests and has praised the industry for making big strides, even as candies continue to test high.
Courtney is one of three top health officials who said he wouldn't allow his children or grandchildren to eat certain Mexican candies that have never been the subject of health advisories. Still, Courtney says, he can't just publicly condemn them.
"We can't tell people not to eat them. It would seem culturally insensitive," Courtney said. "We are still working on how to give out a message that is helpful and yet not overly broad and also not so vague."
Officials at the lead-prevention branch continue to struggle with their message.
After repeated questions, Courtney's bosses acknowledged that all Mexican candies pose a risk to children.
"As a policy, we have said this is an issue of eating something healthier and avoiding these candies," said Dr. Valerie Charlton, the lead-prevention branch's director. "It's the same with lead paint. We don't know that a person's specific house is an issue but we are raising an awareness about older houses in general."
But the lead-prevention branch - which lists as a top priority keeping the public informed about lead dangers - has nothing on its Web site about Mexican candies.
LESSONS LEARNED?
Today, when the ice cream truck with its "Happy Birthday" song stops in front of Lopez's apartment, she gathers up Diana and holds her close.
The other kids rush to the street, where a dozen candies that have tested high are available on the truck.
Diana isn't allowed to eat her favorite candy anymore. Lopez feeds her daughter more fruits and vegetables.
But sometimes, Diana still wants Pelon Pelo Rico.
It has been almost three years since Diana's blood-lead level shot to 25 micrograms and investigators focused on candy.
Lopez and Perez still fear the effects of lead on their daughter. At 25 micrograms, lead has the potential to stunt growth, affect hearing and damage the nerves.
Her parents may never know if her development was slowed by lead. Experts say lead can live in a person's system for 25 years, and the damage can be permanent.
The lead in her blood stayed at a dangerous level for more than two years before it dropped to 8 micrograms in her last test.
Today, her parents look at her with a wary eye and some lingering guilt.
"If I hadn't given her those candies, she wouldn't have had that problem," Lopez said.
They wonder what effects the lead had on her developing brain. They watch her as she does her homework. Their kitchen table is anchored by a bowl of fruit. The only candy in sight is M&Ms.
Is Diana easily confused? Can she focus like the other children? Does she retain information? Should her IQ be 20 points higher than it is?
Like the parents of the estimated 3,000 California lead-poisoning victims who have eaten toxic treats, Diana's parents don't know those answers.
So far, teachers say Diana, who just celebrated her 6th birthday, appears fine.
The state's Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, however, is not getting better.
Pelon Pelo Rico is part of a growing list of candies that have a history of lead but have not prompted health advisories or any other state warnings for parents.
One candy, Tama Roca, has tested high for lead 28 times in 11 years - more than any other candy.
Los Angeles County sent out an advisory against Tama Roca in 2002. Yet the state did nothing.
Another candy, Tablarindo, has tested high 11 times with no state action.
Pelon Pelo Rico, Tama Roca and Tablarindo and at least 52 other candies that have tested high for lead have an ingredient in common that the state has not investigated.
Chili.
Staff writer Valeria Godines contributed to this report.
Getting the word out about lead in candy
Looking for solutions
The Register asked stakeholders for their ideas about how to solve the problem of lead in candy.
Q: How should the state notify the public about high lead test results?
Gloria Rodriguez
Runs a candy store in the Anaheim Marketplace, Orange County's largest indoor swap meet
A: Stores are licensed, so the state has every store's address. The agency should mail the list of candies to all the stores so we can pull the candy from our shelves. Then it should send the same list to the companies making the candy and ban their sale.
Susan Sarvay
Medical coordinator, Hartford Regional Lead Treatment Center in Connecticut
A: The best way to do it is through the media. They should have a public recall of a product and put it all on television. Another way is to send a letter to every pediatric health-care provider to make them aware they should be testing more children who might be at risk.
Leticia Ayala
Activist with the Environmental Health Coalition
A: What California needs is to take an aggressive position and begin removing lead-laden candy from the marketplace. The state needs to start preventing lead poisoning instead of trying to react and inform people about children who are already poisoned.
The Orange County Register began buying and testing Mexican candy in October 2002.
A total of 180 tests of candies and wrappers were conducted on 25 brands at laboratories.
"Unsafe" lead levels are considered to be those that meet or exceed what state regulators call the level of concern.
The California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch sets unsafe lead levels in a standard size (30 grams) candy at 0.2 parts per million and above. The FDA sets that level at 0.5 ppm.
Wrappers must register 600 ppm lead for the state to consider them toxic.
Ultimately, the Register testing found eight brands of candies at unsafe levels 17 times. That means 9.4 percent of the tests came back positive, and 32 percent of the brands had at least one positive test for lead. Federal, state and county laboratories over the past decade have found lead in one of four candy and wrapper samples tested and in 46 percent of the brands.
The Register sent most of its samples to Hayward- based Forensic Analytical, a laboratory that tests candies for the state.
Testing experts were consulted to make sure Register procedures posed no risks of cross-contamination and that candies were stored and handled properly.
Candies were kept at room temperature at the Register building. Each candy was placed in a resealable plastic bag and labeled with the brand name, place and date of purchase. Samples were boxed and sent to Forensic Analytical, typically within days of purchase.
The laboratory used graphite furnace methods, the same method used in state tests.
Here's how it worked:
One gram of each candy sample was poured, packed or smeared into a centrifuge tube. Deionized water and nitric acid were added. The candy then sat for hours, stewing on a sort of hot plate until it was reduced to liquid.
The samples were filtered into smaller, numbered vials to be put in the graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometer.
A mechanical arm dunked a millimeter-wide straw into each vial, drawing some of the melted candy for testing.
The straw then released the test fluid onto a tiny graphite pan, which heated to a red-hot 1,600 degrees, the temperature at which the furnace's computer was able to register the lead content.
Anything above 0.2 ppm lead was a "hit."
It has taken the state months to get testing done on its candy samples - sometimes as long as 18 months. Forensic Analytical produced results for the Register typically within five days.
The Register spent about $5,000 to test candy - part of a $9,000 testing initiative for this series. All testing inventories and test results are available at www.ocregister.com/lead/
May 5, 1993: Picarindo, a tamarind candy made in Mexico and sold in leaded clay pots.
May 27, 1994: Brinquitos, a chili candy made in Mexico by Alpro Alimentos Proteinicos and sold in crystalline granules.
Oct. 21, 1994: Rebanaditas, Mango and Elotes lollipops made in Mexico by Dulces Vero.
Aug. 1, 1996: Storck Eucalyptus Menthol candy from the Philippines
April 3, 1998: Margarita brand Pulpa, Licona Tamarindo and Jarrita Chonita ? all candies that are made in Mexico and packaged in clay pots.
April 26, 2001: Bolirindo, a tamarind lollipop made in Mexico by Dulmex.
March 18, 2004: Chaca Chaca, a chili and apple-pulp candy bar made in Mexico by Industrial Dulcera Tasachi.
A new state law requiring laboratories to report all lead tests to the state is providing health officials with more information about lead poisoning.
Some 500,000 children identified as at-risk by state law – including those whose families receive public aid and those who spend a lot of time in homes built before 1978 – are eligible for blood-lead level tests as part of well-baby checkups at ages 1 and 2. Blood tests for lead poisoning are free for children on state health aid and vary in cost for others, depending upon insurance coverage and individual doctor and lab charges.
According to preliminary state data for 2003:
• Some 400,000 children were tested, but there is no way to tell how many fell into the at-risk category.
• 8,761 children were found with elevated lead levels, compared with 5,617 in 2002.
• Tens of thousands of children considered at-risk still are not getting tested.
• About 1.4 percent of children tested showed elevated levels of lead at or above 10 micrograms of lead per tenth of a liter of blood. National estimates had set the suspected rate of lead-poisoned children at 2 percent.
The new state law is an improvement over old reporting rules, which required that laboratories only report high blood-lead levels. That made it impossible to know how many children were tested or what percentage of the population is contaminated.
State officials had estimated that less than half of at-risk children were being tested, so the new numbers are encouraging.
“We are very heartened to see that there are much higher numbers,” said Valerie Charlton, chief of the state’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch.
Orange County is monitoring 829 children with elevated lead levels. They join a statewide pool of more than 3,000 children with reported elevated lead levels. State law requires monitoring of children who have two lead-level tests of 15 micrograms or above or one test above 20 micrograms.
New studies show that children with lead levels half that can be at risk.
Factors that keep at-risk children from being tested are many, health officials say.
“ The kids at high risk may not even get to the doctor’s office in the first place,” said Joe Courtney, chief of care management and research for the state’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch.
Many families classified as at-risk visit doctors infrequently. When they do go, it’s usually for an emergency, parents, advocates and officials say.
“We can’t bring them to the clinic. We don’t have insurance,” said Salome Torres, a Santa Ana father, who said he rarely takes his three children to the doctor. “If we go to the doctor, then we don’t eat.”
The problem of lead poisoning still isn’t taken seriously by some in the medical community, health experts say.
“When I talk with pediatricians practicing in the community, they are generally unaware and unconcerned,” said Dean Baker, director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health for the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine.
The Orange County Register
Lead lies.
It makes the body think it is calcium so it is absorbed into the bones.
Lead stays dormant in the Earth ?s crust until it is unleashed by drilling, mining and manufacturing. It has no taste or smell. It does not dissolve. It burns, but it stays in the atmosphere. Once it is in the environment, it doesn ?t go away. If it is put in gasoline (a practice banned in 1996), it returns as particles in car exhaust, and it can travel thousands of miles in the air. If put in paint, it flakes and chips and lies around forever, because lead does not break down.
In candy, it gets eaten.
Then it wreaks havoc unless its consumption is stopped.
Lead affects virtually every organ in the body, mucking up the organ ?s normal method of functioning.
Swallowed lead travels from the stomach to the blood stream, from the blood stream to the soft tissue ? liver, kidneys, lungs, brain, spleen, muscles and heart. In children, the central nervous system is particularly vulnerable.
But the most sinister fact about lead is that it has few symptoms. It can reduce a child ?s IQ, cause behavioral problems, prompt memory loss, weaken muscles and stunt growth. Lead can lower the blood-cell count.
At high levels of exposure, lead can cause kidney problems and seizures, coma and even death. It can cause miscarriages in pregnant women and low sperm counts in men. Lead poisoning can be permanent, even if blood-lead levels drop. Lead is stored in the bones for decades and slowly releases into the blood stream.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nationwide, 434,000 children ages 1-5 are lead-poisoned.
Chilies start out safe. But by the time chili powder reaches the Mexican market, it can be tainted with lead.
Monday, April 26, 2004
The Orange County Register
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This seems an unlikely place to look for the lead in candy that poisons children - here, where a miller opens a burlap bag, unleashing a river of maroon dried chilies into a chute. At this mill in Aguascalientes, Mexico, the grinders pound for a few ear-splitting minutes. Then out spills the soft, red powder that will smother Mexican treats.
Here is exactly where the search should begin.
U.S. health inspectors have looked at many things to uncover the origins of lead in candy. They've tested the candy wrappers. They've tested the clay pots some candy comes in. They've tested the candy itself.
But neither U.S. nor Mexican health agencies have done comprehensive testing on chili, even though it is the ingredient used in most candies testing dangerously high for lead.
The Orange County Register hired a laboratory to conduct 55 tests of fresh, dried and ground chili bought in Mexico. More than 90 percent of the chili-powder samples tested high for lead, shocking Mexican federal and state health officials, who say they will investigate.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials were taken by surprise when told about the Register's findings and also said they would look into the matter.
To find how lead gets into candy, the Register traced the trail backward from stores to the fields of Zacatecas, collecting samples along the way - including soil, well water, fresh chilies and chili powder. Many candy companies get chili from Zacatecas, which produces nearly half of Mexico's dried chili.
The Register focused on guajillo chili, a 6-inch, plump green pepper. The chili, which turns red when it's dried, is used to give candy a sweet-tart kick. Fresh chilies the Register tested straight from the farm contained no lead. But by the time chili powder reaches the public market, where some candy companies buy their chili, much of it is tainted.
In many cases, half a teaspoon is enough to poison a child.
Lead, which harms young children most, can cause irreversible damage. It can lower intelligence and cause stomach pain and kidney damage. And lead poisoning often goes undetected because the symptoms can be caused by many other things.
Mexico, which only began phasing out leaded gasoline in the mid-1990s, is about 30 years behind the United States in preventing lead poisoning. There is no routine lead testing of children.
Tough lead regulations have been passed, but they are rarely enforced. Some advances have been made in raising general awareness of lead in ceramics. But when it comes to chili, few in Mexico know of the dangers.
As with lead in candy, there is no single source of lead in chili. But dirt and debris are major factors, the Register found. To understand how lead gets into chili, you have to start at the beginning, in the farm fields, and follow the pepper as it makes the journey to the candy plants.
FARMS NOT THE CULPRIT
Jose "Pepe" Garcia Saldivar, a farmer in Zacatecas, has dealt with plagues, drought, floods and fungus. But lead?
He walks through his 5 acres of chili plants about 20 miles outside Ojo Caliente one September afternoon. Pests have damaged some of the guajillo crop, and a heavy rain has hit it hard. Garcia crouches to point out the damage. Then he looks up.
"If you do find any lead here, it would be good for us to know so we can do something about it," he said.
Garcia, 49, didn't choose farming. He was born into it, following his father's path. He doesn't know how to read or write, but he has memorized enough numbers to understand receipts.
When Mexico opened its markets in 1994, farmers like Garcia were devastated. U.S. corn, which is heavily subsidized, flooded the Mexican market. It only got worse when China, where labor is much cheaper, began exporting chili to Mexico.
"The buyers, the middlemen, used to come here and buy at a good price," Garcia said. "Now, the crops don't sell. It isn't worth anything. The government allowed this free trade, and it hasn't benefited us."
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On this afternoon, Garcia, who usually wears a flannel shirt, jeans and work boots, is dressed up. He wears a beige cowboy hat, ironed shirt and nice pants. He wants to look professional when he sells his chili.
He takes his guajillo to a dryer about 10 miles from his farm. Despite making his best pitch, he loses money on his crops.
Again.
This is the fifth year in a row that's happened.
After he has sold his chilies, Garcia has no idea where they will end up. Maybe in a salsa bowl at a restaurant. Maybe in a family's kitchen. Maybe in a lollipop in the hand of an Orange County child.
Fresh chilies picked from Garcia's farm, as well as those from four other farms, showed no lead in laboratory tests. Soil from Garcia's chili field tested at 16 parts per million lead. Four other guajillo farms also had lead in the dirt, ranging from 18 ppm to 90 ppm. All soil has some lead in it, and lead experts weren't disturbed by the levels in these samples.
"It is unlikely that lead gets into fresh chilies in the fields because the vegetables and fruits generally don't take up metal from the soil," said Paul Bosland, a pepper expert from New Mexico State University. "Even if lots of lead was present in the soil, the leaves would absorb it, not the fruit." But there are other ways lead finds its way into chili powder during the journey to the candy factory.
SELLING CHILI
Shortly after dawn, they arrive at the dryer outside Ojo Caliente. A parade of beat-up pickups driven by tired chili farmers from all over the region rumbles through the concrete gate and parks on the weighing machine.
Cresencio Ortiz, wearing a belt buckle engraved with a fighting rooster, is waiting for them.
The 71-year-old flashes a big smile when a farmer approaches. Ortiz pulls out a thick wad of bills and begins peeling. In one minute, he becomes the owner of the chilies loaded in a truck.
Ortiz, a father of seven, is the middleman, buying the chilies from the farmers and then selling them to merchants or millers. He works at the dryer, which has 120 clients, some with two acres of chili and others with more than 100 acres.
It's high season on this September morning, and the 15 dryers in the Ojo Caliente region are in full swing. Men dash from one chili mound to another, comparing prices and quality. Threatening rain clouds make things more urgent, with workers yelling to get out the tarps to cover the chilies on the ground.
Drying season in Zacatecas has its rituals. It is a man's world. Middlemen from all over the state who haven't seen one another in eight months are happy to be reunited. They play cards to pass the time while the chilies dry. They share a smoke, sometimes a beer. They talk about their children, their grandchildren.
The dryers all look alike at first glance - concrete courtyards, some the size of football fields, surrounded by giant walls. What happens behind the walls depends on one important thing - where the chili is headed.
Chili heading directly to the United States or to Mexican companies with huge sales typically are cleaned thoroughly, inspected individually and packed into clean boxes. But tours of five dryers in Zacatecas revealed something quite different for chilies destined for small- time operators or local markets. They didn't get inspected individually. They didn't get packed into clean boxes. And they certainly didn't get washed.
It's cold at the dryer outside Ojo Caliente on this morning, but the men keep warm near the 10-foot tunnels where hot air blasts over the chilies for 24 hours, sending a delicious smell into the air. Officials at the dryers say the machines are powered by unleaded diesel or natural gas, not leaded gas.
When the chilies emerge on the racks, they are dried a deep, rusty red. The men spread the chilies on the concrete. They put the nice- looking chilies in one bunch and the bruised in another. The chilies often stay on the ground for 24 hours.
They shovel the chilies into sacks. Then the workers, wearing their boots, climb into the sacks and stomp to pack them tight.
"Sure, it's not very clean," Ortiz said. "But you won't eat it like that. You'll clean them first."
Ortiz echoes a common sentiment in Mexico, where the burden of clean produce falls to the consumer. Antibacterial solution is sold alongside fruits and vegetables in markets across the country.
At this dryer, dirt clings to some of Ortiz's dried chilies, as well as to chilies in dozens of other piles.
Two of Ortiz's whole guajillos from the dryer were tested at a laboratory. One came up clean, another had 0.5 ppm lead.
The California guideline for lead in candy is 0.2 ppm. The FDA guideline for lead in most food is 0.25 ppm, but there is no standard for chili or other spices. However, Richard Jacobs, a specialist at the FDA who has investigated lead in candy for years, said lead in food ingredients should not exceed 0.1 ppm.
Of three other whole guajillos from different dryers, two tested positive for lead.
On 18 additional guajillo samples, the laboratory rinsed the chilies and tested the runoff to determine whether dirt clinging to the chilies might be the source of lead. Four samples of the runoff contained lead.
It's the beginning of a problem that will get worse by the time the chilies leave the mill.
Ortiz and other middlemen have a big job ahead of them once they get the chilies out of the dryers. They'll pile the chilies into trucks and crisscross the country, going as far as Mexico City, 300 miles away. They have to find a buyer.
One of their first stops likely will be an hour away, in Aguascalientes, the capital of one of Mexico's smallest states, where Jesus Gonzalez works.
DIRTY CHILI
Gonzalez works in the heart of the agricultural market, one of Mexico's biggest. It's a city unto itself, complete with street names and restaurants.
A typical weekday finds hundreds of produce trucks zooming through the parking lots, where traffic laws mean nothing. Men with slabs of beef draped across their shoulders like capes hurry to the butcher. Women bustle past, their bags brimming with chilies. Drivers honk in frustration at merchants who dash across the street without looking.
They all have somewhere to be, something to buy or something to sell. There is a sense of purpose, excitement. A big-city excitement.
Gonzalez drives into this chaos every day to get to the four chili stores he owns.
He is a devout Roman Catholic. Portraits of saints hang in his stores. During the Cristero war in the 1920s, when an anti-church government clashed with the Catholic Church, villagers were relocated to big cities. Gonzalez's family was moved from a small village in Jalisco to Aguascalientes.
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Some say he has money, but he doesn't put on airs. He drives a rusty pickup and wears rumpled clothes. His nieces and nephews who work for him say he's like a father to them.
His clients include small stores run by mothers in their neighborhoods and restaurant owners. Gonzalez has sold to candy companies in the past. He also relies on opportunities. When bigger companies face a shortage from their chili suppliers, they come to him and other chili sellers to fill the gap.
Gonzalez doesn't just sell whole, dried chilies. He's also a miller, the only one in the market who mills year- round.
His mill is in a middle- class neighborhood near the market, behind a black metal gate. A house is at the entrance. Fighting roosters crow in wire cages near the back next to bags of chili that have been in storage for two years.
Three workers spend their days pouring chilies into one mill. They don't wear masks or gloves. And, like scores of other millers in Mexico, they don't clean the chilies before they are ground.
FATTENING PROFITS
More than dirt gets into the bags. A 110-pound bag of dried guajillo goes for about $130. Because middlemen and farmers get paid by the pound, they sometimes weigh down the bags, interviews with at least a dozen chili workers showed.
Mills screen out some debris with visual inspections and magnets. When Roberto Reynoso, a worker at Gonzalez's mill, is asked about impurities in the chili, he pulls out a car-battery connector, rocks, ball bearings and other debris that he found in the bags. Reynoso estimates that eight of 10 bags that come to the mill contain junk.
Because the bags aren't labeled and can sit in a warehouse for years before the chilies get milled, it is impossible to trace them to the farm or middleman when a problem is discovered.
The mills' screens don't catch everything. Sometimes nails, rocks and dirt get ground up with the chili. And the mill itself can be a problem, especially if it has parts soldered together with lead. Over time, parts of the mill get ground up with the chili. The Register tested four chili-powder samples from Gonzalez's mill - three guajillo and one chile de arbol - and all contained dangerous levels of lead, ranging from 0.3 ppm to 1.3 ppm.
The Register toured five mills in Mexico and tested 25 chili-powder samples bought from major agricultural markets in four states - Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Jalisco and Michoacán. Some candy companies go to these markets to buy chili in bulk.
Twenty-three of 25 chili-powder samples tested positive for lead, ranging from 0.3 ppm lead to 4 ppm.
At 3 ppm, a child would only need to eat 2 grams, less than half a teaspoon, of chili to exceed the daily maximum lead level considered safe. In some cases, that would be just one lollipop or one candy packed in a clay pot, a common container for sticky Mexican candy.
Gonzalez didn't blink when told about the lead in his chili powder. He pointed out that the mill has a magnet, which catches metal, although it doesn't attract lead.
He said the cost would be great to clean the chili and label every bag. Every peso counts.
"What else can I do?" he asked.
"It is very common for people who sell bulk commodity to throw in dirt, rocks, depending on what the commodity is, so that they increase their profit margin by a few percent," said Stephen Rothenberg, senior medical researcher in Mexico who studies lead issues.
"What is surprising to me is that they are not washing the chili right before they mill it," Rothenberg said.
Mexican candy makers, however, weren't surprised.
"It's really dirty, dirty, dirty," said Maria de la Luz Garcia Cortes, whose family runs Fabrica de Dulces Cisne, a candy company in Morelia that has 40 employees. She said her company is careful to make sure the ingredients used are pure, and she won't let her children eat candy with chili unless she knows where it is from. "It has rats. They don't check it," she said. "You don't know how it is made."
Javier Arroyo of Mexican candy company Grupo Lorena, which uses sterilized chili for its products, said: "If you have dirty chili, you have lead." A Register analysis showed that at least 79 percent of the Mexican candies testing high for lead in U.S. and California laboratories contained chili as a main ingredient. Eliminating lead shouldn't be that difficult, experts say. "I assume that if the soil attached to the chili was washed off, it should reduce the lead in chili powder by at least an order of magnitude," said Jon Ericson, a University of California, Irvine, environmental scientist who has studied lead poisoning among children in Tijuana.
CLEANING UP?
Mexican government officials initially denied there were problems with chili powder.
"I don't believe it," said Jesus Gonzalez Najera, a government agricultural official in Zacatecas who helps farmers with subsidies.
But when told about the Register test results, Gonzalez Najera became concerned and vowed to look into the matter.
"We have to see what the problem is. There must be something in the milling process that is happening," he said. "What is the cause? This sounds very bad."
Jose Luis Flores, a federal health director in Mexico, also was taken aback by the findings. He wondered if chilies dried in the sun were picking up dirt or if food coloring containing lead was being used in chili powder.
"When you tell me this, I say, 'Oh, goodness,' " Flores said. "Imagine how worried I am now."
In California, officials with the Department of Health Services initially said they couldn't act on tainted chili because they can't collect samples in Mexico.
But in an interview in February, they promised to work with Mexican officials.
"We know that some of these lead sources are in the ingredients, but that is important information to share with the Mexican officials so that as those assessments of risk factors are conducted the proper action can be taken," said Kevin Reilly, the state's deputy director of prevention services.
"I think that's valuable information, absolutely, and it should go into working with the ... manufacturers in Mexico on how to eliminate that as a potential source."
Although the FDA has suspected chili as a source of lead, U.S. officials also were surprised by the Register's high lead results in chili.
"If you have some good data that would help us along, that is one good thing that we would see from what you're doing," said Terry Troxell, director of the FDA's Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages. "We've looked at quite a few candy samples over the last few years, and most of the levels are below 0.25, and so I guess I'm a little surprised that you're seeing 4 parts per million in chili." The FDA issued an April 9 warning about Mexican candy, citing problems with chili powder. The move came weeks after the Register asked the agency why it hadn't done more about the candy ingredient.
SETTING AN EXAMPLE
Not all chili milled in Mexico is contaminated. At a chili mill in an industrial neighborhood in Guadalajara, about three hours from Aguascalientes, things are done a bit differently.
The chili here isn't just cleaned, it's sprayed with chlorinated water. It doesn't touch the floor. Workers wear hairnets and aprons.
It is ground in sterile, stainless-steel mills that cost $15,000 each more than seven times what some smaller milling operations pay for their equipment. Plastic curtains surround the mills to prevent dust from sifting in. The chili leaves this building in labeled bags, so if there is a problem, the chili can be traced. Then, it is sent to a laboratory in Mexico City to be screened for lead, bacteria and other problems.
This isn't just any chili. It's chili going into candy headed for the United States. But that doesn't stop the lead-laced candy from ending up in the hands of Orange County children.
Tomorrow: Some candy companies in Mexico make two versions of their treats one cheaper for local children and one more costly to meet U.S. standards. But both versions make their way to Orange County.
Q: How much Mexican candy has chili on it?
A: A major Mexican candy maker estimates that 33 percent of its treats sold in the United States contain chili. The Register has identified more than 80 brands of Mexican candy that tested above the state level of concern for lead and was able to buy most of those candies in the United States. Of those, 79 percent contained chili.
Q: Do candy makers use only guajillo chili in candy?
A: No, although that is the favored chili. Leaders in the chili and candy industries said in dozens of interviews that guajillo is the chili used most often. Some companies use chile de arbol and piquin, much smaller and spicier peppers. The Register found high levels of lead in ground guajillo and chile de arbol samples.
Q: How much chili does Mexico export to the United States?
A: Mexico continues to be the biggest chili exporter to the United States. In 2003, nearly 98 percent of the imported fresh peppers came from Mexico 388 million pounds, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the same year, the United States imported 21 million pounds of dried chili pepper products from Mexico.
Q: Why would chili used in candy have lead but not chili used in other products like salsa?
A: Experts say there might be lead in the chili powder going into salsa, but it gets diluted by so many other ingredients that it wouldn't be a problem by the time it is eaten. Candies can have a much higher ratio of chili to other ingredients.
Tests suggest lead introduced in powder
More than 100 samples are taken throughout the chili process - from field samples to ground chili - in four Mexican states.
The Orange County Register
The Orange County Register examined chili because Mexican candy is often smothered in it, and health officials suspect it is a major source of lead.
The Register traveled to four Mexican states, collecting more than 100 samples throughout the chili process starting in the fields with soil and water and ending in Orange County stores with salsa products. Tests were done on 55 samples of fresh and dried chilies and chili powder bought in Mexico.
Chili powder is where lead appears to be introduced, according to test results and interviews with Mexican candy companies. More than 90 percent of the chili powder tested for the Register contained lead.
The chili powder samples were mostly guajillo because it's the type of chili used most often in Mexican candies. Six ground chile de arbol samples were tested as well because it occasionally is used in candy.
At an agricultural market in Morelia, Michoacán, the Register bought a sample of ground guajillo from a stall that sells to candy companies. The sample was sent to Forensic Analytical in Hayward, a lab the state uses to test candy. The chili powder had 1.5 parts per million lead. The state standard for lead in candy is 0.2 ppm.
A sample of tamarind used in many Mexican candies was bought from the same market. It also had 1.5 ppm lead.
In July, the Register went to the agricultural market and a mill in Aguascalientes. Ten chili powder samples - eight guajillo and two chile de arbol - from the mill and stores in the market were tested. Some of each variety contained lead. Eight of the 10 samples ranged from 0.3 ppm to 1.3 ppm.
The samples were kept in individual plastic baggies, labeled and stored at room temperature. At the laboratory, samples were dissolved in a mix of nitric acid and deionized water, then heated. It's the same technique used for testing lead in candy.
It was unclear how the chili was being contaminated by lead, so additional testing was done on chilies as well as on water, soil, tamarind and other candy ingredients.
The Register went to Zacatecas in early September, during the harvest of guajillo chilies, to collect samples from the fields, dryers and agricultural markets.
On the advice of lead experts, during the collection of soil samples, a plastic spoon was used instead of metal to avoid tainting the results. Well water from the farms was collected in plastic bottles.
Since the Register could not obtain a fresh-vegetable permit from the U.S. government to send fresh chilies to the lab in California for testing, a laboratory in Guadalajara - Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnologia y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco - was hired. This is the lab used by many candy companies in Jalisco. The Register sent five fresh chili samples and three tamarind-pulp samples. The lab extracted liquid from them and then used a technique called atomic absorption spectroscopy to analyze for lead content. It has a detection limit of 0.2 ppm (the same limit used at Forensic). None of those samples had lead.
In mid-September, more samples were collected in Zacatecas. Thirty-three sam- ples - chili powder, soil, well water and whole dried chili - were sent to Forensic Analytical. Once again, the chili powder had the highest lead levels.
All of the 13 chili-powder samples tested positive for lead, ranging from 0.3 ppm to 3 ppm. The dirt had trace amounts of lead. Two separate samples containing chili powder along with sugar, food coloring and lime were tested. One contained lead. The other did not. Of five samples of whole dried chilies, three contained lead.
The Register then sent 18 whole dried chili samples to the California lab. The lab put them in containers, rinsed them and tested the run-off for lead.
Of the 18 run-off samples, four tested above the lab's detection limit of 5 parts per billion. Then it tested the chilies after they were rinsed and found no lead. It appears the lead was caused by dirt clinging to some of the chilies.
The Register asked stakeholders for their ideas about how to solve the problem of lead in candy.
Q: How can chili milling be improved to keep lead out of candy?
Jesus Gonzalez
Chili miller in Aguascalientes
A: Labeling the individual bags that are sent to the millers would help. That way, if a problem was discovered, they could trace it back to its source. The problem with that, though, is that it would add costs to smaller operations that are already struggling.
Heliodoro Perez Tabares
General manager of HASA, a chili plant in Guadalajara that Dulces Vero built in response to U.S. concerns about contamination in chili
A: The chilies must be cleaned thoroughly. At the plant, every single chili for export to the United States is opened, emptied of the seeds and any dirt that may have gotten in through cracks or holes and specially cleaned. Workers wear masks and protective clothing.
Ubaldo A. de la Torre
Sales and marketing manager at the Vero corporate office in San Antonio, Texas
A: Better communication with the Food and Drug Administration, which posts notices on its Web site about problem candies and chili coming across the border. The problems don't get reported to the actual company or factory that produced the product. We could track down the actual batch that it came from to see what went wrong, if something went wrong, and work it out with the FDA.
Should you be worried about your salsa and cooking sauces in light of problems with Mexican chili powder?
Not really, lab tests and experts indicate.
The Register tested 25 U.S. and Mexican products made with chili - from Lawry's hot taco seasoning to Charitos corn sticks to Valentina Salsa Picante. Twenty-four of the products, bought from Orange County stores, had no detectable levels of lead. One, Búfalo brand Salsa Picante, had 0.2 parts per million lead, but the lead level fell below U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for most food.
The Register also tested products from smaller companies, including chili-covered peanuts and spicy pork rinds, which also had no lead.
In November, California health officials issued a health advisory about lead in fried grasshoppers covered with chili - a traditional Mexican treat. The grasshoppers imported from Oaxaca had high levels of lead.
Children are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning. But adults can be harmed by high levels of lead in their blood, which can make men and women infertile. It can also damage the fetus in a pregnant woman.
The amount of chili in salsa probably isn't a concern for adults, one expert said.
"The thought is that unless lead levels in your blood are extraordinarily high (in adults), you won't have any health effects," said Robert Lynch, an associate professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Oklahoma who has studied lead in Mexican candies.
"You have had the neurological development you are going to get. Most of the development happens before 7 years. My guess is for adults that it just doesn't matter. My guess is that (salsa) would get really diluted down to a level that it wouldn't be a problem," Lynch said.
"If kids were eating it, it could be a problem, but in this country, a lot of kids aren't eating that much salsa and hot sauce."
But they are eating a lot of chili-smothered candy.
"I think the stuff on the candy is a real issue," Lynch said.
Use of lead-tainted ingredients in some candies made in Mexico raises ethical questions.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
The Orange County Register
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MORELIA, MEXICO – Workers in the Dulces Moreliates candy factory flatten globs of sweetened tamarind and chili paste into long, sticky sheets. They roll them together tightly and cut them into slim, brown coils that look like sleeping snakes.
Hence, their name: Serpentinas.
Hair tucked under caps and faces masked, crews nearby prepare the wrappers - rolls of plastic designed with bright orange lettering.
Serpentinas are popular treats in Mexico and among Latinos in the United States. Orange County's ethnic markets, convenience stores and big chain stores all carry them.
But there is something dangerous about the way these candies - and others in Mexico - have been made.
Something about the recipe.
Tests show that chili powder, tamarind and ink in wrappers all have had levels of lead that can cause brain damage in children who regularly eat Mexican candies. At least eight Mexican candy companies have been penalized by U.S. health regulators for producing candy that tested high for lead. State and federal agencies have issued public- health advisories, forcing stores to pull the candies off their shelves and change their candy- making methods.
But instead of cleaning their candies for kids everywhere, some companies have made a cheaper choice.
They sell candies that can be dirty and prone to high lead levels to kids in Mexico. When they make a product for export, they switch gears.
At the Serpentinas plant last summer, that meant workers scrubbed the candy- making machines. They pulled out stores of more costly, sterilized chili and clean apple pulp. They whipped up a different batch of Serpentinas - still a sleeping snake but without the poisonous bite. Then they wrapped the harmless candies in clear, transparent plastic, minus the toxic ink.
Same candy, two recipes.
One tastier, cheaper and often registering toxic lead levels for the Mexican market. The other more bland, more expensive and formulated to pass muster with U.S. health regulators for export across the border.
Both versions of Serpentinas, and many other candies made two different ways, are sold in Southern California markets, sometimes without the manufacturer's knowledge, an Orange County Register investigation found.
In the case of Serpentinas, the two versions come in different packages.
But in other cases, candies are packaged in a way that prevents parents from telling the difference between a clean candy and one that might poison their children.
And within any given bag of candy, each piece is different. The lead shifts and settles during the mixing of ingredients, so some pieces will test high while others will test lead free.
As a result, a simple candy purchase becomes a game of Russian roulette.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and California regulators have known about the problem of different versions at least since 2002, internal memos show. Yet, they have not done comparison testing of the two versions, including Serpentinas. They haven't worked with companies in Mexico to make sure the two versions are easily distinguished. And they have done almost nothing to address the problem of these candies crossing into the United States. Over the past three years the FDA, which screens food products at the border, has averaged fewer than four candy tests per month, according to records.
The Register tested 180 samples of Mexican candy for this series from 25 distinct brands. Eight brands, or 32 percent, had high lead levels.
For today's story, about 70 candy samples from seven brands were tested because they are made two ways. Some candies were bought in their original Mexican-market packaging. Others were bought directly from distributors and candy makers in Mexico before the candies crossed the border.
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Four of the seven brands measured high for lead in Register tests. In some cases, the lead levels were six times California guidelines. In all of these candies, the levels measured so high that a child's lead consumption would surpass acceptable daily levels, as set by the FDA, with a single treat.
Register tests of sister products meant for sale in the United States came out clean.
The few candy makers who admit to making candy two ways point to economics, cultural preferences and different food-safety requirements. Products shipped to the United States have to meet specific standards for filth, food colorings and lead content. Mexico has similar guidelines in some areas but does not have the regulatory muscle to enforce them or to educate the industry. Mexican health agencies lack the resources to license or inspect all the country's candy makers, and candy testing is rare. Mexico has taken action against candy makers when prompted by sanctions in the United States.
But the bottom line is this: Mexican candy makers don't believe their products pose any danger.
"We can argue back and forth about what is safe, but as always in business you try to do what you are told by your experts is safe and you go by that and try to serve whichever markets are available," said Luis Antonio de la Torre, the general manager of Mexican candy giant Dulces Vero's Texas subsidiary, which exports cleaner candy to the United States. "We are not trying to hide anything or trying to cut any corners."
Parents and consumer advocates say candy makers put profits before people's health.
"I don't think that Mexican kids are more resistant to lead than kids elsewhere," said Dr. Herbert Needleman, a pioneering lead-poisoning researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. "The evidence is clear on how lead damages kids. It's up to (the companies) to do the right thing."
MEXICAN CANDY SALES UP
Mexico is the birthplace of America's favorite candy: chocolate.
The Spaniards under Cortez found the Aztecs in 1519 sipping a cocoa-bean drink from golden goblets in religious ceremonies, believing it a divine gift.
Through Spain, chocolate spread around the world in different forms, with the first candy bars appearing in the mid-1800s. In Mexico, chocolate gave way to candies that made better use of some of the country's most abundant crops: sugar, chili and tamarind, a fig-like fruit that grows in pods.
Today, the country's roughly 1,500 candy makers range from mom-and-pop shops on rural roads to large companies with offices worldwide. Unlike the U.S. market, which is dominated by heavyweights such as Hershey and Russell Stover, more than 80 percent of Mexico's candy makers are small, family businesses.
Mexican candy companies can't depend on the domestic market, where candy consumption totals about $6 per person annually, one of the lowest per-capita spending rates in the Americas. In the United States, that number is more than $50 per person, generating $15 billion in annual sales.
That's why, with the help of U.S. candy makers who have bought Mexican companies or built their own, Mexico has more than tripled its candy sales in the United States since the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994. The Mexican candy industry is expected to grow to $880 million by 2006.
CLEANER CANDIES COSTLY
Mexican companies have a strong financial incentive to make two products.
The versions they make for Mexico cost less - as much as five times less for some ingredients, company officials and candy distributors say. If small companies were forced to make all their candies to a higher standard, some say, they would go out of business.
And the cheaper candies appeal to the local palate. Heavy-duty washing that occurs in U.S. versions not only eliminates dirt and lead but can dull the flavor.
Many companies declined to talk about the manufacturing process or, despite evidence to the contrary, denied that they make two versions.
But others defend the practice. Antonio Mora Mendoza at Dulces Moreliates says his company tailors Serpentinas to fit consumer demands and government regulations in each market.
Mexicans prefer tamarind. They like its distinctive tang and texture. But U.S. regulators have found tamarind to be dirtier than rules allow. Nearly 10 years ago, the FDA ordered all tamarind products stopped at the border. So, Mendoza says, he doesn't send tamarind products to the United States.
State testing records show that 45 percent of all Serpentinas samples have tested high in lead. One candy wrapper had among the highest lead results ever seen by the state: 15,000 parts per million. That's 25 times the state guideline.
Wrappers worry health advocates as much as the candies themselves because the toxic ink from the wrappers can leach into the candy. Kids also lick the gooey candies off the wrappers. A child chewing even a shred of that Serpentinas wrapper would exceed the daily lead-consumption limit.
When the Register tested two versions of the candy and their wrappers, a clear difference emerged.
The U.S. version of Serpentinas passed, but the Mexican version - bought in Orange County - showed lead levels twice what the state considers a potential health threat. The Register tested five samples of each version.
Mendoza, who represents the latest generation to run the small, half-century-old family business, says he doesn't believe the state of California's body of evidence against his candies. He knows the candy-making process from the inside out. The former engineer hand-built some of the equipment used to grind, press and cut the candy.
He showed the Register his company's own test results, which found the candy to be clean.
"It's all good. It's well- made," Mendoza said in June. "(U.S. importers) ask me to send it differently."
But last month, Mendoza told the Register that he began using cleaner chili for both versions of his candy, although he continued to use tamarind and the colorful wrappers with ink on the plastic for the Mexican version.
Mendoza makes about 3 percent of his candy for export. Like most candy companies that make two different products, the vast majority of his candy production, at least in theory, goes to market in Mexico.
Vero, one of the largest Mexican candy companies, makes less than 5 percent of its candies specifically to meet U.S. regulations, company officials said.
But large U.S. distributors buy the Mexican versions across the border and truck it over. So do small-time entrepreneurs who deliver the goods to convenience stores and ice cream trucks around Orange County.
Unless a candy is the subject of an FDA alert, importers can legally bring it in. In most cases, candies pass through the border. If distributors knowingly ship candies that contain high amounts of lead, they could face penalties, but the Register found no instances where this had happened.
This goes a long way toward explaining why parents in Southern California are more likely to buy the Mexican version of the candies.
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MAKERS QUESTION TESTS
In the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains, Effem Mexico takes extreme measures for candies headed to the United States. The company makes products under the Lucas brand name.
The Santa Catarina company buys chilies from farmers who meet strict guidelines. Chilies must be picked before they ripen so they don't have a chance to attract bugs and become dirty. They must be washed vigorously and dried indoors.
For Mexico, the chilies ripen on the plant. Then, without being washed, they are set in the sun to dry.
U.S. candy company Mars Inc., one of the largest private food producers in the world, bought the Lucas product line in 2001. Mars officials insist their products do not and have not contained high amounts of lead.
But federal and state testing records show these Lucas candies tested high 20 times since 1994 - more than half the time tested. The candies include the popular Lucas Acidito, a chili-and-salt mixture children like to pour directly onto their tongues.
It's unclear whether Lucas candies have tested high since Mars bought the company. FDA tests provided to the Register show that three Lucas candies were high sometime between October 2000 and November 2002, but the records don't specify dates.
Mars officials said they had not been notified by the state or the FDA about high lead results.
Tim Anh, the director of quality services for Mars' snack-food subsidiary, said the company allows a little more dirt in its candies meant for Mexico because, frankly, more dirt means more flavor.
It's not that dirt tastes good, but washing chilies removes what are known as "flavor compounds," Anh explained. Unwashed, sun- dried chilies have more pop.
"The export variety is lower in insect fragments than the one that we sell in Mexico because of the regulations in the U.S.," Anh said.
Register tests found that unwashed chilies can be a source of lead, but Anh said the company's own tests on both versions of the candy have not shown problems. He declined to share specific numbers.
Another company that said it doubts California's testing numbers sits on a side street in central Mexico in the busy city of Morelia.
Industrial Dulcera Tasachi makes Chaca Chaca candy bars out of apple pulp and chili. The candy has tested high for lead in 17 state and federal tests since 1998.
The Register tested seven samples of this candy. The versions meant for Mexico tested high in lead twice. The versions meant for the United States showed no lead. After repeated questions about Chaca Chaca from the Register, the state and the FDA issued an advisory last month.
Before the regulatory action, Chaca Chaca attorney Agustin Bracho would not acknowledge that his company exported the candy to the United States, let alone that it was making a special U.S. product.
But the company that has imported Chaca Chaca for sale in the United States tells a different story. Victor Reyes at Triunfo-Mex Inc. in the City of Industry said his company has imported Chaca Chaca bars since 1991, at times in loads as big as 300,000 bars a month.
Reyes said many candy makers do not want to acknowledge the dual products because it could damage their business in Mexico.
"Many companies fear they will hurt their brand," he said.
For that reason, companies also shy away from labeling products differently, he said. That makes it all but impossible for customers to know what version they are eating.
Triunfo-Mex's massive warehouse is a tribute to the success of the Mexican candy industry in the United States. It brings in more candy than any other independent distributor, candy makers and wholesalers say.
Relaxed in the company's spacious meeting room, stocked with tequila, champagne and cognac, Reyes said nearly 50 of his clients produce export-only products with cleaner ingredients and lead-free inks to assure easier passage across the border. Reyes stopped importing Chaca Chaca last fall because he said the candy maker would no longer pay extra for cleaner chili.
"It is much more expensive for companies to do a product for export," Reyes said.
DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH
Despite the effort and expense in making two recipes, import and export versions can be hard to discern. Their labels often are the same, and, in some cases, the Mexican versions are dressed up to look like U.S. products.
Part of the reason is, again, economics.
Candy makers don't want to spend extra money on an entirely different package for the cleaner product. Companies that distribute the candy don't want them to change their packaging, either.
They hope Latinos who bought these candies as children in Mexico will want to buy them here now. It's why some Mexican candies - with pineapple wedges wearing sombreros, smiling bears and brooding cows - look quaint next to some of their slick American counterparts.
"A lot of my customers are in their 20s or 30s, and they like these candies because they grew up with them," said Estela Gil at Carlo's Meat Market in La Habra, which boasts a wide candy selection across from the butcher cabinet.
Even the companies have trouble telling the difference between the two versions once they are on the shelves.
Vero might use higher- quality chili for candies heading to the United States, but Vero executive de la Torre acknowledged that the bilingual packages used in both countries are identical. The one clue is a white paper square found on the outside of some candy boxes and bags. It says in English: "Imported and distributed by Vero candies ... San Antonio, TX."
The Register bought a box of Vero's Super Palerindas lollipops packaged like this and sold at an Anaheim store. Lollipops tested from this box were found to be free of lead, but the Mexican versions, which are much more prevalent in Orange County stores, showed high lead levels.
The Register found the Mexican version in dulcerias from La Habra to San Juan Capistrano. These candies also are widely available at grocery stores - usually in the same aisles as Snickers and Junior Mints.
IT'S IN THE BAG
There are dozens of firms around Southern California that buy the candy, put it in their own bags and sell it at a premium.
The re-bagging process can accomplish at least two key goals. By putting an English label on the bag, a Spanish-only product becomes compliant with FDA and California labeling requirements. And by making all the bags uniform in size and shape, they can be more easily stacked on store shelves or hung on racks next to the checkout counter.
The twist is this: The candy maker no longer has quality control.
Chula Vista-based El Pecas buys Vero Mango lollipops, adds its own chili, then puts the candies in bags that don't identify them as Vero pops.
The Register tested 10 samples of Vero Mango lollipops that were not re-bagged by El Pecas - both import and domestic versions. All came up lead free.
But mango lollipops packaged by El Pecas had high lead levels.
El Pecas manager Mayte A. Flores said she was surprised by the results and intended to do her own testing.
"Every time we buy candy, we want to make sure we are not poisoning the kids," Flores said. "I don't want to hurt the kids."
But Flores did not test the candy on her own. Instead, she phoned Vero officials, who told her there were no problems. She said she took their word for it.
At Vero, de la Torre said he didn't know repackaging companies bought his candies and sold them as their own.
"I know with the product we import for the United States, we haven't had problems," de la Torre said. "I don't analyze products in Mexico and others that are being repackaged by somebody."
SUPERHERO PITCH
Candy lovers in the United States have been buying sweets made in Mexico for years without knowing it. It's simply a fact of the changing marketplace that more and more candy is made south of the border.
In 1969, Hershey opened one of the first U.S.-owned candy factories in Mexico. Since then, nearly all the major companies - Tootsie Roll, Nestle, PepsiCo - have opened plants there, mainly to take advantage of cheaper sugar and labor. They ship candies back to be sold in the United States.</