Magnitsky might have been poisoned with substance created for sabotage, says prosecutor

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Twenty-three people have been hospitalized with food poisoning after eating snacks from vending machines in offices in the Russian capital, a Moscow health official Svetlana Smetanina told TASS on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Moscow department of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare informed that 30 officers had been poisoned in Moscow on July 15-16, with 17 people being hospitalized. The main version is that they had contracted salmonellosis after eating snacks from the Healthy Food vending machines placed at numerous Moscow offices.

"In total, 23 people have been hospitalized, two of them already discharged. Currently, there are 21 patients with the preliminary diagnosis 'acute intestinal infection of unspecified etiology,' all patients relate their illness to the consumption of ready-made products from vending machines," the agency’s source said.

According to Smetanina, all patients are in a satisfactory condition. They are receiving all the necessary medical aid.

Currently, the production shop of the Healthy Food Production company is sealed, along with 15 vending machines and a restaurant in one of the Moscow shopping centers. Experts of the Russian Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare discovered expired products, unmarked produce and stuff with fake expiration dates.

A spokesperson for the company Valentina Chyornykh said on air of the Govorit Moskva radio station that the company had suspended all production and that it is currently carrying out a large-scale investigation involving independent experts.