Tainted Berries Cause Scare Parents Urged To Have Kids Inoculated Against Hepatitis

Word that more than 1 million pounds of frozen strawberries shipped to school lunch programs and the commercial market might contain hepatitis A sparked a scramble to inoculate children, sent parents into a panic and cut into the market for the fruit Wednesday.

As investigators from several federal agencies worked to track the suspect berries, a top executive resigned from the company that supplied Mexican fruit for the school lunches, which are supposed to use only U.S. products.

Epitope Inc. of Beaverton, Ore., announced that Fred L. Williamson quit his job as president of Andrew & Williamson Sales Co. in San Diego. The company would not say why Williamson resigned, although Epitope President Adolph J. Ferro said A&W had “inaccurately described” the berries as domestic, rather than Mexican-grown.

Mexican agriculture officials quickly jumped to their own defense. Baja California Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Israel Camacho said he thought it was more likely the berries were contaminated “during processing and packing rather than during cultivation.”

Eighty percent of the U.S. strawberry crop is grown in California, and some growers complained of canceled orders at a peak time in their growing season. One grower said he lost $12,700 in canceled orders Wednesday.

The episode shattered a feeling among parents and children that school should be a safe place.

“The school should at least scrutinize the food a little bit more carefully and then none of this would happen,” said Belinda Hernandez, a parent interviewed outside Los Angeles’ Garfield High School.

More than 9,000 students and staff at 18 Los Angeles public schools might have eaten 4-ounce fruit cups made with contaminated strawberries.

So, too, could children at schools in Iowa, Georgia, Arizona and Tennessee. In Michigan, there are already at least 150 confirmed cases of hepatitis linked to the berries.

Matthew Kramer, an Epitope vice president who traveled to the San Diego plant Tuesday, said the company was cooperating with state and federal agencies to figure out what stores the bad berries might have gone to.

“The strawberries went to brokers from us and then to other customers,” he said. He declined to elaborate.

Kramer said the USDA ordered 1.7 million pounds of strawberries from A&W for its school lunch program and another 900,000 pounds went to other customers.

Michael Friedman, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, estimated that about 1 million pounds of strawberries from fields in northern Baja California, Mexico, could be contaminated.

He said slightly less than half of those were sent to the USDA school lunch program, while the other strawberries were used commercially. The FDA was still working to assess any additional public risk.

Gamma globulin vaccinations were being urged for children who could have been exposed to the virus and could spread it to their families and friends. Kramer said Epitope would pay for Los Angeles-area inoculations. Other states planning to give the shots include Georgia, Arizona and Michigan.