Authorities have been withholding evidence that schoolchildren have been fed sandwiches that could kill them, reports Khadija Magardie
In a shock move raising serious ethical questions, health authorities in at least two of the country’s nine provinces have been sitting silently on information pointing to the long-term poisoning of thousands of indigent South African schoolchildren.
Excessively large doses of aflatoxin, a potentially lethal by-product of a fungus affecting peanuts, have been passing unnoticed into peanut butter sandwiches for children on the government’s Primary Schools Nutrition Programme (PSNP).
The PSNP has, in many ways, been the jewel in the government’s crown and has had relative success in combating malnutrition. It was one of the lead projects of the Reconstruction and Development Programme in 1994. It plans to target up to 4,8-million children all in primary school.
According to the Health Systems Trust, which has done extensive research on nutrition programmes, about R472,8-million was allocated to the PSNP on its inception. Its aim: “To contribute to the improvement of education quality by enhancing primary school pupils’ learning capacity, school attendance and punctuality and to contribute to general health development by alleviating hunger.”
Targeting areas on the basis of poverty criteria, many of the provinces serve a varied, nutritionally rich menu daily to the children. In most cases, this consists of a peanut butter or jam sandwich and a cup of sour milk (amasi) or an energy-rich cooldrink.
But the reputation of the scheme will take a hammering in the light of revelations that it has paltry systems in place to prevent the distribution of contaminated foodstuffs.
Flavourless and odourless, making its presence difficult to detect, aflatoxin is carcinogenic in any quantity. Besides a rare form of liver cancer, exposure to the toxins can cause vomiting, abdominal pain, convulsions, coma and death.
Various health journals are awash with data on the clinical implications of food contaminated by aflatoxins. One of the research reports describes aflatoxin contamination as “one of the most challenging toxicology issues of present time”.
Some countries, like the United States, do not allow any aflatoxin into products available to the public. But others, including South Africa, permit small amounts. By law, no more than 10 micrograms a kilogram of aflatoxin is allowed in a specific product with no more than 5 micrograms a kilogram being the highly dangerous aflatoxin B1.
But in a sample taken for testing from just one Eastern Cape school on the programme, the peanut butter was found to contain “271,63 micrograms a kilogram of total aflotoxin, of which 165,05 micrograms a kilogram is aflatoxin B1”. This is nearly 30 times the legally accepted limit.
Though not every feeding scheme is affected the menus vary from province to province the scare appears to have spread.
According to the head of the school feeding scheme in the Northern Province, Marjory Mongwe, the province has not heard of the aflatoxin contamination in peanut butter. But according to sources, several schools in the province are reportedly refusing to accept the feeding schemes in their area, on suspicion that they are “poisoned”.
The Western Cape is reportedly monitoring all peanut butter used by the schools to ensure that no aflatoxin is passed on.
Despite the seriousness of the matter none of the information has been made public.
The problem was first raised by health authorities in the Eastern Cape last year, but aflatoxin was first detected in school feeding scheme peanut butter in the Western Cape as early as 1999. Despite repeated warnings that the matter could get out of hand, inside sources allege the Eastern Cape provincial office has repeatedly dragged its heels.
Repeated tests indicated that the batches of peanut butter being used were contaminated and unfit for human consumption. But it was only in mid-March this year that the health authorities in the Eastern Cape quietly stopped distributing peanut butter at schools replacing the sandwiches with a high-energy biscuit.
And they had not even been looking authorities discovered the aflatoxin contamination by chance, after sending in a batch of apparently burned peanut butter for analysis. It was in August last year that laboratory tests showed the peanut butter was contaminated.
At regular meetings between the department and suppliers, it was repeatedly mentioned that all batches of peanut butter delivered to schools would, as a matter of routine, need an accompanying certificate declaring them aflotoxin free. But due to lack of adequate monitoring, this directive appears to have been all but ignored until the “problem peanut butter” was submitted to the department for testing.
In a follow-up in November last year the environmental health officers in the five regions comprising the Eastern Cape Department of Health were instructed to collect samples from two schools on the programme and forward them to the relevant authorities for chemical analysis.
The certificates of analysis for at least three of the samples all indicated the same thing. In each case the analyst specified that the strains of aflatoxin found in the samples did not comply with the Foodstuffs Act, and far exceeded the acceptable limits.
Further results from the health department’s forensic chemical laboratory in Cape Town, also forwarded to Bisho in December, were also not responded to, until provincial instructions were issued regarding menu changes only at the beginning of this year.
The peanut butter is sourced from small-scale manufacturers, and not from the commercial sector. The NGOs awarded tenders for the feeding scheme independently organise foodstuffs from their suppliers. The onus, therefore, is on the NGOs to maintain the necessary standards.
The Office of the State Attorney in the Eastern Cape has been approached by the Department of Health with the possibility of future class legal action in this regard.
According to a source within the department, the menu changes were made mainly in the light of concerns that the department, and the government, could be sued for supplying contaminated products to already nutritionally compromised children.
The department has informed the schools that are part of the programme about the aflatoxin contamination, but it is unclear whether the message has actually been passed on to the families of the children.
A high-ranking official in the health department confirmed that a meeting was held at the beginning of this year with national health authorities, alerting them to the problem. But the provincial authorities say they were not slow to act. The official said as soon as the presence of aflatoxin was detected in the peanut butter it was taken off the menu.
But despite urgent “final correspondence” to several of the NGOs contracted to the scheme, urging them to adhere to the standards specified or face legal action, the feeding of contaminated peanut butter continued until mid-March.
This was aided by the fact that there is currently no accreditation system for suppliers, which would make it easy to monitor quality and possibly suspend or penalise those found to be in violation of the conditions stipulated on the PSNP contract.
It also raises questions as to why, despite initial tests establishing that their supplies were contaminated, no remedial action against the various NGOs and their suppliers besides letters of warning was taken.
The national department was alerted late last year about the problem. At a meeting in March this year it was recommended that peanut butter be withdrawn from the menu.
According to departmental representative Jo-Anne Collinge, additional reasons were that a survey showed that many children don’t like peanut butter.
The children on the scheme in the affected regions are now being fed a high-energy drink, fortified biscuits or bread with margarine and jam.