HIDDEN THREAT Mexican candy can contain a poison that is especially dangerous to children.

OC Register ^ | Sunday, April 25, 2004 | Story by JENIFER B. McKIM, KEITH SHARON and WILLIAM HEISEL

[sixmil]

The poison arrives in an ice cream truck, "Happy Birthday to You" crackling from a single speaker wired to the roof.

On this street in Anaheim, the neighborhood kids drop their bikes and balls and make a beeline for their mothers to beg for money.

[sixmil]

Free traders rejoice!

[Oztrich Boy]

HIDDEN THREAT Mexican candy can contain a poison that is especially dangerous to children, women, gays, and minorites

[markman46]

it's not inported candy, it's candy that people go down and buy and sell it here in the little icie carts and ice cream trucks that ply the hoods. and the stats is not telling the countys/parents the lead levels. very sad.

[DB]

So I suppose you don't buy any foreign goods?

[raybbr]

"We can't tell people not to eat them. It would seem culturally insensitive," Courtney (Joe Courtney, chief of care management and research for the lead-prevention branch) said. "We are still working on how to give out a message that is helpful and yet not overly broad and also not so vague."

Officials at the lead-prevention branch continue to struggle with their message.

After repeated questions, Courtney's bosses acknowledged that all Mexican candies pose a risk to children.

So, we can't embarass the Mexican candy makers. It's more prudent to let children be poisoned.

[sixmil]

So I suppose you don't buy any foreign goods?

No, I do, but I inspect them. Meanwhile, our government, cheered on by free traders, inspects a percent or two of the products coming into this country. The fear is that protecting the consumer is somehow protectionist. And of course, we need the cheap labor to keep the machine going, so there is a separate set of laws for Mexicans.