Trick-Or-Treaters Beware: There May Be Lead In Your Candy
The California Department of Public Health has issued more alerts for lead in candy than for the other top three sources of food-borne contamination combined.
The Mercury News:
Halloween Alert! Scary Findings About Imported Candy, Study Says
Officials estimate that as many a 10,000 California children under the age of six are poisoned by lead each year, and 1,000 of them are exposed to very high levels of the toxic metal, which has been linked to developmental delays, neurological damage and hearing loss. As UCSF’s Laura Kurtzman recently noted, while the bulk of the efforts to reduce child exposure to lead have been centered on lead-based paints, gasoline and soil, health experts are now focusing their attention on another culprit, candy. (D'Souza, 10/27)
In other public health news —
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. County Death Toll From West Nile Virus Climbs To 17
Amid a heat wave that could make West Nile virus more likely to spread, the number of people infected with the disease in Los Angeles County continued to climb this week. At least 230 people in L.A. County have fallen sick with West Nile this year, and 17 of them have died, health officials said Friday. The number of people infected is already the third-highest ever in the county, according to health officials — and the season has yet to end. (Karlamangla, 10/27)
The Mercury News:
Can Superhuman Athletes Provide Genetic Clues On Heart Health?
The TMX425 is the whirring heart of a five-year-old Stanford study into extreme athletic performance that researchers hope could lead to medical advances that would change the world. In exam room 10, and at partner clinics across the globe, test subjects undergo an impossibly difficult treadmill test designed to identify athletes with freakishly high cardiovascular efficiency. (Wilner, 10/29)