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PART FIVE:
POROUS BORDER

Regulators can’t agree on which rules to follow to stop the flow of tainted candies into the United States.

Thursday, April 29, 2004

By WILLIAM HEISEL and JENIFER B. McKIM/ The Orange County Register
Photos by ANA VENEGAS/ The Orange County Register

TIJUANA, MEXICO – This place is kid heaven.

SUMMARY

Situation: A lack of coordination among federal, state and county regulators allows children to be poisoned by a steady stream of lead-tainted candy crossing the Mexican border.

Findings: Regulators allow higher levels of lead in candy than in other foods. The state has no official rules for tackling the lead problem. Federal officials test few candies coming across the border.

Response: The state says it can’t control its border with Mexico. That’s the FDA’s job. The FDA admits there is a problem with the standard for lead in candy, and policy makers at the agency say they intend to lower it. But it could take years.

La Tapatia Mega Dulces, in the factory district, is stocked floor to ceiling with every imaginable type of Mexican candy: chocolates, lollipops, jelly pots, soft candies with hard centers, hard candies with centers that squirt when you bite into them.

A store-sponsored, weekly TV show features a man dressed as a giant mouse going on adventures around town. Advertisements give viewers a glimpse inside the store: kids wide-eyed and giddy, staring up at the towering stacks of candy.

Vehicles with U.S. license plates fill the parking lot. Big trucks load up for sales in California. Parents pack their trunks with bags for birthday parties and weddings in San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles.

Manager Manuel Ramirez knows that some brands of candy in his store have tested high for lead in U.S. regulatory labs. He knows that they've been stopped at the border and turned back. But, as much as he knows his business wouldn't exist without kids, as much as he is a father with young kids of his own, he is a businessman.

California Department of Health Services records show that more than 80 Mexican candy brands have tested high for lead in the past 10 years. When told this, Ramirez shrugs.

"How am I supposed to police the international distribution of candy from my one store here in Tijuana?" he asks. "I do what I can, but I only can act on hard evidence."

Mexican regulators say they can't do much about the problem either. They don't have enough money to correctly license the candy makers, let alone inspect their factories.

At the border, U.S. agents have the staff to inspect only a fraction of the trucks carrying candy from factories and from stores like La Tapatia.

And, in the United States, store owners and county health workers say they can't act on evidence that hasn't been provided to them.

In a two-year investigation, The Orange County Register found that regulators can't agree on which rules to follow, who should enforce them and whether to share findings with people who can keep poisonous candies from kids. All the while, candies continue to be sold throughout California that contain enough lead to violate even the most liberal safety guidelines.

State and federal regulators acknowledge that their efforts need improvement. But they emphasize that they are working in uncharted territory. It has taken more than 40 years for government agencies to find effective ways to fight lead in paint and in gasoline, and those battles still aren't won. Research into the widespread presence of lead in candy not only is relatively new but it has one significant barrier to overcome: the problem doesn't start on U.S. soil. It starts where U.S. laws and regulations have no power. It starts in Mexico.

RESOURCES LACKING

The streets in Morelia are pocked like a mouth full of cavities. Last spring, two environmental health workers drove these streets in a little red truck, stopping abruptly at pot holes, gingerly squeezing down narrow roads, politely asking for directions from taxi drivers and store clerks, all in search of a candy company licensed by the state of Michoacán.

The central Mexican state's Environmental Health Department has registered roughly 32,000 businesses. Inspectors try to check them for obvious health hazards, but even finding those businesses can be a struggle.

"We can't verify all the companies that exist," said Gerardo Mendoza Ramirez, the chief of the Michoacán Environmental Health Department.

This particular hunt ended at the brightly painted doors of a small candy factory, Fabrica de Dulces Cisne.

The company's salted tamarind-and-chili products are abundant in Orange County stores, although candy makers say they don't export. The candy has not tested high in California, but similar tamarind-and-chili candies have shown high lead levels.

On the day Michoacán health workers came calling at Cisne's doors, though, they weren't even given the opportunity to check for problems. An employee, through closed doors, politely said that workers had gone home. No one could answer their questions.

Coming back the next day was not an option. They had other tasks to do.

This type of encounter was nothing new to Mexican health officials, who acknowledge their inability to effectively track and regulate the booming candy industry.

"We don't have a lot of people. It can take a year to visit a factory that is registered," Mendoza said.

KEY TERMS

Lead poisoning: Officially defined in children as an elevated blood-lead level of 10 micrograms or higher, but some children’s health advocates argue that any lead in the blood is poisonous.

Microgram: One millionth of a gram. Federal limit for safe levels of lead consumption is set at 6 micrograms per day for children.

Parts per million: Used to describe the amount of lead in candy, this measurement indicates how many micrograms of lead there are for every million micrograms of candy. It is shortened to ppm after the first reference.

Tamarind: A tropical, pod-like fruit with acidic pulp used in many Mexican candies. Native to Africa, the fruit was introduced to Mexico in the 1500s.

Staff isn't the only resource in short supply. For tracking and inspecting those 32,000 companies, the 10 employees in the department's central office share one phone and two computers, which often are on the blink. The office has one fax machine that requires a signature from the director to use.

Companies are supposed to tell the state in writing where they are operating and what they are producing. But there is little follow-up. Virgilio Perez Negron Medrano, one of the workers trying to contact Cisne, said it's difficult to even find established addresses. Imagine what it's like when companies provide false addresses, he said.

The Michoacán government isn't sure how many candy companies exist. The state has registered fewer than 10 companies in the capital but candy makers - many of whom have been in business for generations - say numbers are at least three times that.

They're hard to find because so many of them are small. Unlike sophisticated candy companies in the United States that operate on massive industrial campuses, many candy makers mix batches in their garages, cook them in their kitchens and ship them from the nearest post office, which is often many miles away.

Even if candy factories are found and candy is sampled, Mexico doesn't hold companies accountable for making products with excessive lead. The chief health official for Mexico told reporters two weeks ago that fears about Mexican candy had been overblown. His comments were prompted by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration press release telling parents to be aware of lead in Mexican candy. "You would have to eat enormous doses for an acute intoxication to occur," said Mexican Health Secretary Julio Frenk in an Associated Press account. The government has been working on setting standards similar to guidelines in the United States, said Jose Luis Flores, director of surveillance for the Mexico Ministry of Health.

Flores said that after the poisoning of a Costa Mesa boy in 2001 that was linked to candy, the Mexican government tested candies nationwide and found that there was a problem with lead in wrappers. But candy testing in Mexico is not routine, and health agencies don't track children who may have been poisoned by lead in candy. When told about the U.S. tests of Mexican candies, Flores responded with surprise. "If there's a problem they should tell us so we can identify who's the factory owner," Flores said. "Communication should be improved."

Flores maintained companies are raising their standards even without strict government oversight.

"I think the quality of Mexican candy has improved a lot," he said. "The candy is eaten principally by Mexicans, and we are very interested that Mexican candy doesn't have lead."

Jorge Vazquez Narvaez coordinates the Michoacán health department's efforts within the Morelia city limits from a satellite office a few blocks from the state's main office. He said last year that no companies have permission to export outside the state. To do so they must fill out the proper paperwork and pass an inspection.

The quantity of Mexican candy that ends up on Orange County shelves is beyond his control, Vazquez Narvaez said.

"It goes as contraband," he said, smiling. "How many Mexicans are over there? It's clandestine."

AN EASY CROSSING

Manuel Ramirez's candy warehouse in Tijuana is a 15-minute drive from the border.

Ramirez knows many of the products - including some chili-covered tamarind lollipops and tamarind in clay pots - are not supposed to be sold over the border because of U.S. regulators' concerns about lead and filth. He tells clients if they are planning to buy a big shipment they could have problems at the border. Officials there acknowledge they catch only a small percentage of shipments being sent, but any large loads may attract attention.

NAMES TO KNOW

A guide to names as they appear after the first reference in part five

Barron: Gerardo Barron, owner of candy company Dulmex Dulces Mexicanos in Jalisco

Bond: Vincent Bond, press officer for the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection

California health department: Department of Health Services, which includes the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch

Cisne: Fabrica de Dulces Cisne, a candy company in Morelia

Dylan: Dylan Gonzales, son of Rose Lucero-Stirk

FDA: U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Flores: Jose Luis Flores, director of surveillance for the Mexico Ministry of Health

Gomez: Rick Gomez, manager
of Gosa Toys in Santa Ana

Iacono: Vincent Iacono, U.S. Food and Drug Administration compliance officer

Jacobs: Richard Jacobs, an FDA metals specialist

Lucero-Stirk: Rose Lucero-Stirk, mother of Dylan

Markowitz: Gerald Markowitz, history professor, City University of New York

Mendoza: Gerardo Mendoza Ramirez, chief of the Michoacán Environmental Health Department

Michoacán health department: The central Mexican state’s Environmental Health Department

Ramirez: Manuel Ramirez, manager, La Tapatia Mega Dulces candy warehouse, Tijuana

Rosner: David Rosner, history professor at Columbia University

Sloan: Jeffrey Sloan, an FDA investigator at the Otay Mesa border crossing near San Diego

Troxell: Terry Troxell, director of the FDA’s Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages

Vazquez Narvaez: Jorge Vazquez Narvaez, candy business regulator, Morelia, Michoacán

Customers usually can avoid inspection altogether by stashing a few boxes of candy in their trunks and driving through the border checkpoints that tourists, not importers, use. If they're not intending to sell the candies, they likely won't run into trouble, but some small-time candy merchants do take the risk, assuming they won't be caught.

Ramirez estimates that about 20 percent of his sales are meant directly for export to the United States. Regardless, as long as he sells within Mexico and doesn't ship directly to the United States, he is within the law.

"We are acting in a legal manner," he says, walking among the shelves packed with more than 1,000 brands of candy. "We aren't trying to hide. But we can't stop people from buying our product."

Rose Lucero-Stirk is one of those customers.

The 27-year-old Orange woman loaded up her Ford Expedition with candy last November, with her mother and 5-year-old son Dylan in tow.

She pulled out a big bag of Pelon Pelo Rico, a candy gel that is pushed through a tube and licked off the top. Dylan already had torn a hole in the bag and made a mess of one of the candies.

"He's not supposed to have them every day," she said. "But this is his favorite."

Lucero-Stirk, like many of Ramirez's customers, buys candy in Mexico for one reason: it's cheaper. She can buy 36 Pelon Pelo Ricos for less than $3 at La Tapatia. At the Food 4 Less near her home, $3 would buy six candies.

Pelon Pelo Rico has repeatedly tested high for lead in California tests, but Lucero-Stirk, like most parents, would have no way of knowing that. The state has not revealed its cache of test results.

One of her favorite candies, Tama Roca, a chili- coated ball of tamarind on a stick, also has tested high. The state hasn't revealed those tests either.

"The only thing I've ever heard about are the jellies that come in those little jars," said Lucero-Stirk, referring to candies in clay pots. "When I was little I ate them like crazy, but I won't let Dylan eat them now."

After learning about the potential high lead content in some of the candy she and Dylan had eaten, Lucero-Stirk said she intends to have her son tested for lead. His teachers have noticed that he has developed a speech impediment, and she's worried there might be a connection.

She'll be tested, too, she said. For her, the situation might be more urgent. She is a surrogate mother. She carried twins to term for a Los Angeles couple and was recently impregnated a second time, after she stopped eating the candy. Candy taken from her home and tested by the Register showed no lead. "How can the state know about this and not tell parents?" Lucero-Stirk said. "It's scary."

Many Mexican candy makers who insist they don't export say they sell a significant amount of candy in Mexican border towns like Tijuana. Still, they say they are surprised so much of their product is jumping the border.

"We sell in Tijuana. We don't send it directly to the United States,'' said Gerardo Barron, owner of the small, Jalisco-based candy company Dulmex Dulces Mexicanos. "But someone is buying it and passing it. We don't know who it is."

Dulmex specializes in tamarind and chili candies and was nearly run out of business three years ago when one of its lollipops, Bolirindo, was the subject of a public health advisory in California.

Barron says he has since fixed the problem. He separated his candies from their ink-laden wrappers by putting them first in clear cellophane with the label wrapped around, like a cigar. In California's testing data, there are no records of the company's products testing high since 2001, but the health advisory remains on the California health department's Web site and on sites nationwide.

Like other candy makers, Barron said he doesn't know how his candy gets into the United States. Some call it "contrabando hormiga" - or ant contraband - describing the small, repeated passages across the border.

Last spring, Contra Costa County officials tried to track down a distributor selling black-market prescription drugs and Mexican candy to shops out of his car. The county shut down a local market for selling prescription drugs illegally, but they could not find the distributor.

The store owners "showed us an invoice for prescription drugs and candy,'' said Joe Doser, senior environmental health specialist with Contra Costa Environmental Health. "No name, no address. He was a fly-by-night, going store by store.''

CANDY RARELY TESTED

At the tourist and pedestrian border in Tijuana, U.S. Customs, not the FDA, runs the show.

Customs agents allow people coming into the United States to bring up to $2,500 worth of merchandise if it's for personal use. But agents may question people with packages worth less if they suspect the goods are meant for sale. Those travelers are sent through the commercial border, according to Vincent Bond, press officer for the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.

Federal officials, however, can't check every car, nor are they focused on the importation of illegal candy, Bond said.

Now that the customs agency and the FDA are part of the Department of Homeland Security's push against domestic terrorism, candy doesn't hold a candle to al-Qaida.

ALERTS AND ADVISORIES

State and federal officials have several ways to regulate food.

Safety alert: A glossary of key terms used in part one of this investigation

Import alert: A glossary of key terms used in part one of this investigation

Health advisory: A glossary of key terms used in part one of this investigation

Recall: A glossary of key terms used in part one of this investigation

"Our primary focus is anti-terrorism and terrorists. We are really focused on that, making the nation safe," Bond said. "The traffic backs up for hours. You have to use risk management ... and allow traffic that appears to be legal and law-abiding pass so you can concentrate on vehicles that need more thorough inspection."

Eight miles away at the Otay Mesa commercial border, federal regulators, while far better equipped than their Mexican counterparts, are still outmatched.

FDA compliance officer Vincent Iacono watches as trucks line up along the dusty road leading to the border, a transnational traffic jam that lasts all day.

Some 3,000 to 4,000 trucks pass daily at Otay Mesa. It is the state's largest commercial border with Mexico and second only to Laredo, Texas, in truck volume for all U.S.-Mexico crossings. That means in a typical shift, the 20-member staff has a maximum of four minutes per truck.

It should come as no surprise that on average, FDA workers inspect about 2 percent of all merchandise that crosses the border, according to FDA officials.

About three years ago, because of growing concern over lead, the FDA launched a plan to step up testing of Mexican candies.

It sounded good in theory, Iacono said, but border staff do not have equipment to test the candies on the spot. Samples must be sent to Kansas City or San Francisco, and Iacono's staff may not hear about results for weeks. The agency did not provide specific turnaround times for testing.

While samples are being tested, trucks are allowed to go on to their destination, under the agreement that they hold their wares until the samples have been cleared by the FDA. The agency doesn't always check shipments later to make sure they weren't parceled out and sold.

The FDA stopped a shipment of Chaca Chaca candy bars in 2002 for being "poisonous" but rescinded the order after high-lead tests could not be duplicated, Iacono said. Other candies, too, are allowed to be sold because the FDA can't find consistent high levels of lead.

FDA officials say one or two high lead tests are not enough to prompt federal action. But FDA testing records reveal a deeper problem. When top agency officials say candy is not one of their highest priorities, they're right. The agency rarely tests for lead.

The FDA did not respond to repeated requests for comprehensive copies of its testing records, but one report shows that between October 2000 and November 2002, there were 66 federal lead tests on candy, an average of a little more than two tests per month.

In seven different cases, the agency found that eating fewer than two candies would be enough to push a child past the FDA's guideline for daily lead consumption. Yet no action was taken. An additional 31 candies were tested just once with no follow-up testing.

Like most of the FDA's testing results, these were not shared with California regulators. The FDA does not have a mechanism for regularly distributing its testing results to state and county health agencies. "If we had some different type of situation to deal with where there was product tampering or something like cyanide put into a candy product, that would be a very different type of situation," said Michael Kashtock, an FDA safety adviser who has long been involved in the candy issue. "The state, local and federal governments would all participate in the response to that."

When the FDA put the company Candy Pop on its import alert list in August 2003 following high lead tests, its border agents knew to start looking for the company's candies immediately. But county health inspectors would not be on the lookout for it on store shelves or in the homes of lead-poisoned children because the FDA does not send those alerts to health officials. The candy that prompted the import alert was Vero Super Palerindas. The Register found it in Orange County this week.

REGULATORS' PREDICAMENT

Health experts say the standards themselves are part of the problem.

Lead is one of the best understood, best studied and best monitored toxic chemicals. It was banned from house paint in 1978 and from gasoline eight years later. Faced with a mountain of data on lead's connection to health problems, the U.S. food industry voluntarily quit using lead solder to seal food cans in 1991.

An active base of private, nonprofit and government officials work to track lead in the air, in the water, in paint and in food. But standards for how much lead is harmful continue to lag behind the science, experts say.

"All the new evidence is indicating that low-level lead exposure, even at very minimal amounts, affects the IQ, creates learning problems, creates behavioral disorders," said David Rosner, a Columbia University researcher who has written extensively about lead in consumer products. "The question isn't, at what level can we allow lead to be in food? The question needs to be, can we allow any food product to be sold that shows even traces of lead?"

Candy was among the first foods to draw researchers attention to lead - more than a century ago. In Europe, candy was being sold wrapped in lead foil. And in some cases the candies themselves were being dyed with leaded inks. As technology made lead detection easier, the rules toughened.

The current federal standard for candy is 0.5 parts per million lead. It stems from the old standard for sugar. The amount of lead allowed in sugar was lowered to 0.1 ppm four years ago by a different federal agency, the Institute of Medicine, but the candy standard has not followed.

Why not? The sheer size of the FDA and the myriad rules it must follow in making policies prevent it from acting quickly. It issued formal instructions to the candy industry in 1995 and now feels bound to them.

"We are sort of restricted by the policy we established by formal rule making and letters to industry," said Richard Jacobs, a metals specialist in the FDA's San Francisco district office. "That is the predicament."

The process of changing those rules likely would last several years and require multiple hearings and opportunities for the industry to make comments.

"Maybe some of these children have been seen to have clinically elevated levels, but frequently you can't associate that with the candy. It may be something else in their environment," said Terry Troxell, director of the FDA's Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages.

The Register reviewed many of its findings with Troxell on March 2, including the conflicting standards. Three weeks later, the agency issued a letter to candy makers telling them it intended to take steps to reduce exposure of children to lead in candy. It did not explain how this goal would be accomplished or how quickly.

Researchers and public health advocates said the evidence is clear and should prompt swift action.

"If the guideline is 0.1 for sugar, then there's absolutely no reason for it not to be 0.1 for candy," said Gerald Markowitz, a City University of New York history professor who works in tandem with Rosner on lead research.

The differing regulations don't stop with sugar. Most other foods and some ceramics have a 0.25 ppm standard, half the candy standard set by the FDA. A family could have a bowl full of candies on the table. Both could test at 0.4 ppm lead. The bowl would be considered in violation of FDA guidelines. The stuff that kids actually eat would be considered safe.

California health department officials, as far back as 1998, have asked the FDA to tighten its standards. A state toxicologist wrote in an e-mail that year to the FDA that the limit should be lowered to 0.1 ppm.

State officials have long been concerned that the federal guideline of 0.5 ppm conflicts with another FDA guideline setting the maximum level of lead a young child should consume in a day. That guideline is 6 micrograms.

How are the two rules at odds?

The FDA found out in March when it decided to put Chaca Chaca, a Mexican candy bar made in Morelia, on its import alert list. For more than a year, the FDA ignored test results that showed the candy testing at between 0.2 ppm and 0.3 ppm lead. It had the California health department asking for guidance on how to deal with its own lead results for the candy and the Register asking why nothing had been done to deal with 17 high lead tests in six years.

"The tests weren't as high as our action level for regulating a candy, but we hadn't taken into consideration the weight," said Joe Baca, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Chaca Chaca weighs about 40 grams. When the FDA multiplied the parts per million result by the weight of the candy, it found that children eating just one candy bar would be consuming more than 10 micrograms of lead. State tests showed some Chaca Chacas contained nearly 30 micrograms of lead.

It's math like this that has prompted the state Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch to be more aggressive when it comes to testing candy. The state uses a lower guideline of 0.2 ppm, knowing that candies like Chaca Chaca could test at that level and contain more lead than the FDA allows. In state and federal testing records, more than 90 candy samples fell into the gray area from 0.2 ppm to 0.49 ppm. The chances that a single candy testing in that area will deliver a powerful lead punch are pretty good. In 65 of those samples, it would take just one piece to surpass the federal consumption guideline. In all but six cases, it would take fewer than two candies to reach that same level. Underscoring the confusion among regulators, two brands tested below 0.2 ppm in a total of four tests, but because they weighed so much, they, too, were beyond the 6 microgram guideline. Both of those candies ended up being the subject of state and FDA health advisories.

THE RAP ON WRAPPERS

It's not just the content of the candy that can be tricky. FDA officials and state health regulators also can't get a good grip on wrappers.

The California health department uses an unofficial level of 600 ppm - the same level considered high for paint - to screen lead in candy wrappers. More than 130 wrappers and other containers have tested with high levels of lead since 1993, state and federal documents show. That's about 23 percent of all those tested.

State and federal officials say they can't go after a candy based on a wrapper test unless the candy tests high, too. The Register found this isn't always true.

In the case of a Filipino candy called Storck Eucalyptus Menthol, the state issued an advisory after just two wrappers tested high. State records showed no signs of lead in the candy.

FDA tests later revealed lead as high as 0.8 ppm, prompting the federal agency to put the candy on its short list of candies to be stopped at the border. In other cases, the state and the FDA haven't followed up on high wrapper tests at all. A Pinta Rojo lollipop wrapper tested at 15,000 ppm lead in May 1995 - one of the highest test results ever found. But there are no records of subsequent tests, and it continues to be sold in California.

More than a dozen other candies followed the same pattern. High wrapper tests with no follow-up.

"There is no doubt that lead is dangerous to children, that lead is in foils and wrappers, that the lead leaches into the candy and that children absorb that lead," City University's Markowitz said. "It seems just outrageous that we would still be having a discussion about whether lead should be allowed in wrappers." The FDA says that because wrap- pers aren't a food, they fall under the Consumer Product Safety Commission. After a year of questioning by the Register, the commission said last month that it is researching the wrapper issue.

To understand where lead in candy fits on the FDA's priority list, one need only look at the agency's list of recalls and "safety alerts." Unlike the import alerts they send to border agents exclusively, these are distributed to health workers in county and state offices nationwide. The FDA typically issues hundreds of these a year. From 2001 to 2003, the agency publicized one health warning about tainted candy.

Iacono says he still sends to FDA headquarters in Washington reports of candies with levels of lead lower than the 0.5 ppm guideline. He hopes that doing so will help build a case for a stricter standard.

Iacono said that as part of the sampling effort, the agency picks candies it hasn't seen before. It also stops tamarind candies to look for excess dirt and insect parts.

Last summer at the border, FDA investigators Tammy Milks and Jeffrey Sloan opened boxes of candies to take samples for lead testing.

Before deciding which candies to sample, Sloan said, the agency takes into consideration two things: the size of the shipment and the amount of the workload at the federal lab.

When a reporter pointed out a candy that failed to detail "artificial colors" on its label as required by law, Sloan said, he would let the shipment pass because it was only about 50 cases.

"We don't want to overburden the labs," he said.

Asked if the team would be picking through candy boxes if reporters hadn't been there, Sloan looked up and said: "Possibly. ... Probably."

OTHER CANDIES TARGETED

In May 2002, the FDA did take legal action against a candy - but not because of lead.

FDA agents went to an Irwindale warehouse in Los Angeles County and seized all gelatin candies made by Sheng Hsiang Jen Foods in Taiwan. The cause? The candies, which were sold in small cups, weren't dissolving quickly enough in kids mouths, causing at least three choking deaths nationwide. Following stories in the Sacramento Bee about the candy, the agency launched a lengthy campaign to drive these candies out of the market.

Rick Gomez, the manager of Gosa Toys in Santa Ana, remembers state health workers looking for the cups in his warehouse.

"They were pretty worked up about it," Gomez said. "I had to get rid of all of them. I guess if there's a problem, they figure it out and do something about it."

Gomez said it was hard for him to reconcile that experience with what the Register revealed to him: that the state and FDA had compiled records of more than 100 types of candy that have tested high for lead and that more than half of those candies are available in Gomez's store. The heir to his family's candy business was nothing short of stunned.

"Even if they have a candy that's tested high one time, they should tell people like me about it so we can decide whether to take something off the shelf," Gomez said. "How can they be all concerned about kids choking on one candy and not care about them being poisoned by all these other candies?"

A bill requiring the disclosure of candy test results was unveiled in Sacramento last year. It started with so much hope, but supporters soon learned that it isn't easy to force change in the Capitol.


Register staff writers Valeria Godines and Keith Sharon and freelancers Kim Calvert and Zaynah Moussa contributed to this report.


Dialogue key in setting clearer standard
Looking for solutions

The Orange County Register

The Register asked stakeholders for their ideas about how to solve the problem of lead in candy.

Q: How can the United States set standards that limit lead in candy?

Jose Beltran
Anaheim parent whose three kids eat candy that he ate as a child, much of which has tested high for lead

A: There shouldn't be different standards for different foods or from different agencies. It's all going into your mouth. Set one strict standard. That way everyone will be safe.

Terry Troxell
Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages

A: We have that on our list of things that we want to try to get done this year. And we're going to give it a shot, but we have a lot of priorities with counter- terrorism and food-safety issues to try to minimize outbreaks for produce and so on. We can't get everything done.

Manuel Ramirez
Manager of La Tapatia Mega Dulces in Tijuana who sells Mexican candies to domestic stores and people bringing candy to the United States for sale

A: Mexico and the United States already have a platform to discuss this issue through trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement. If the United States sets a clear standard for itself, it needs to share its evidence with Mexico.


Cultural sources of lead

The Orange County Register

Lead paint still is considered the most common source of lead poisoning. But, in addition to Mexican candy, a cocktail of other cultural sources linked to the immigrant backgrounds of children are showing up in lead-poisoning cases.

Home remedies: Families use greta and azarcon to treat intestinal illnesses. These products are primarily lead. Azarcon, a bright-orange powder, also can be found as rueda, coral and liga. These sources are banned from the United States, but people bring them into the country. Home remedies were linked to 18 percent of lead-poisoned children statewide in 2001 and 2002.

Imported pottery: Lead from pottery can leach into food. Health officials recommend people not use older, imported or handmade dishes unless they are tested for lead. Pottery was identified as a source in 4 percent of recent state lead-poisoning cases.

Cosmetics: Surma, a black, powdered cosmetic is usually available in Middle Eastern or Asian markets. Also known as kohl, kajal or al-kahl. Families use the cosmetic in and around the eyes of their children. While state data doesn’t single out cosmetics, the highly leaded powder was identified as a source in at least four Orange County lead-poisoning cases since 1998.

Chapulines: Chili-covered grasshoppers from Oaxaca, Mexico, have been linked to lead poisoned children. In November, the state issued a health advisory about the snack often prepared with garlic, salt or lime juice.


Copyright 2004 The Orange County Register