The following is from MedPage Today.

While it’s not clear whether children exposed to recalled applesauce packets have suffered acute lead poisoning, pediatricians should take recent warnings seriously, experts told MedPage Today.

Morri Markowitz, MD, director of the Lead Poisoning Prevention and Treatment Program at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, New York, told MedPage Today that blood lead levels of 20 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) or higher in young kids can bring on clinical disease in some children.

These levels are typically associated with a “higher frequency of intestinal complaints,” he said.

Children are usually hospitalized at 45 mcg/dL, and are at risk of severe consequences, including death, at 100 mcg/dL, Markowitz said.

So far, 34 cases of illness (across more than 20 states) possibly tied to cinnamon-containing applesauce packets made in Ecuador have been reported to the FDA, and the lead level detected by the agency in a sample of one product was 2.18 parts per million — more than 200 times greater than FDA’s proposed action level for these kinds of products.

Blood lead levels detected among the young children (ages 1-3 years) have ranged from 4 to 29 mcg/dL, according to the CDC. Kids’ lead levels are considered elevated at just 3.5 mcg/dL.

“It is of concern to me,” Markowitz told MedPage Today, though he cautioned that the “amount of lead in the blood is not necessarily a good predictor of how much lead is in the brain, or how much lead has accumulated in the bone.”

Nonetheless, there are “potentially lasting consequences from early lead absorption,” he said. Much of the concern is focused on the potential for decline in cognitive function and changes in the brain.

While the most well known health hazards are lead-based paint or lead in water, “non-paint hazards have been found to contain lead and include spices, ceremonial powders, and alternative medicines,” the spokesperson said, pointing to a 2018 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report authored by Kim Angelon-Gaetz, PhD, of the department, and colleagues.

As for the recent cases, there may be more questions than answers at this stage, including about the ultimate source of lead in the recalled food items.

FDA said its leading hypothesis is that cinnamon in the recalled products is the likely source of contamination, but the agency has not yet been able to collect and test samples of the cinnamon and is working with Ecuadorian authorities to investigate the source.

Link to article here.

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