The Knesset Health Committee opened discussions Monday on the infant fruit purée scandal in which sedation substances were found, following an exposé by Kan News. Last week, the Health Ministry told the parents of five toddlers hospitalized after consuming purées made by Prinoq that laboratory tests had indeed found anesthetic materials in the products.
During the hearing, officials said the Health Ministry currently lacks systems for immediate reporting and analysis of such incidents, including tools to connect separate complaints and warn of a broader event. Dr. Yael Luria, head of the National Poison Information Center at Rambam Medical Center, said, “We depend on the alertness of the doctor,” adding that there are many ways to detect links between events in different places and times, but “today there is no system where a doctor can report a suspicion immediately and that information is also analyzed immediately.”
Committee chair MK Yehonatan Mashriki said, “We must make sure we do not find ourselves in a situation where it takes the system a long time to wake up.” He urged the Health Ministry to examine tighter oversight of baby food safety and to consider requiring a seal that would show products had not been opened. “Parents in Israel must know that the food they give their children is safe, supervised and fit for use,” he said.
YaeI Biton, mother of two of the poisoned toddlers, told lawmakers she knew the jar was contaminated and repeatedly asked hospital staff to test it. “They took it, and only after a month and a half it was tested, and they saw there were these drugs in it,” she said. “Personally it hurt my sense of security, I am afraid to buy almost anything.” Police and Health Ministry representatives did not answer why the suspect jar, handed over in early May, was not tested for a month and a half even though it had been in police possession.
Police officer Superintendent Adi Mizrahi Bawaron said the first case initially appeared unrelated to others, and only after a second case did police connect them. Panina Oren Schneidor, head of the Health Ministry’s National Food Service, said the first incident was initially treated as a separate medical case, and only after similar information came in did testing begin and a possible link emerge. She added that when the incident ends, the ministry will conduct an internal investigation and sharpen internal procedures with hospitals and police. Earlier this month, Kan News reported that three Jerusalem toddlers were hospitalized after blood tests found traces of sedative and anesthetic substances; after buying various purées, they showed apathy and weakness and were admitted to Hadassah Ein Kerem before being discharged. Two days later, the ministry ordered immediate closure of two Jerusalem branches of the Zol U’Begadol chain, where the purées were purchased.
