Lead in imported candy tops contaminated food list in state, UCSF study says

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A new joint study between UC San Francisco and the California Department of Public Health, published Thursday in "Environmental Health Perspectives," has found that the CDPH has issued more health alerts over the last 14 years for lead in candy than for the other top three sources of food contamination — E. coli, Botulism, and Salmonella — combined.

Over those 14 years, the CDPH issued 164 health alerts for food contamination. Sixty of those were due to lead, and "nearly all" of those cases — 55 of them, to be exact — were specifically issued for imported food, most of which was candy. Most of the lead-contaminated foods came from Mexico (34 percent), China (20 percent) and India (20 percent).

Lead is toxic and consuming it in food like candy it can lead to health problems including brain and nervous system damage, hearing loss, speech problems, and developmental delays in both children and adults, as the Centers for Disease Control report.

"As more lead sources are identified we must develop prevention approaches for all of them, and not just replace one prevention approach with another," said Dr. Margaret Handley, the first author of the report and a professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF. "If there is anything we have learned from the lead poisoning disaster in Flint, Michigan, it is not to oversimplify or cut corners when it comes to identifying and removing sources of lead poisoning."

The CDPH began more widely testing for lead in candy in 2006, when a new law mandated a food surveillance program. Between 2008 and 2014, lead was the cause for 42 percent of all alerts, but during the five years prior to when testing on candy began, between 2001 and 2006, they were only known to have caused 22 percent of health alerts.

As the report adds, as many as 10,000 children under six-years-old are poisoned by lead every year, and 10 percent of those encounter very toxic levels of lead.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

