UNICEF Under Microscope for Alleged Vitamin A Contamination

UNICEF Under Microscope for Alleged Vitamin A Contamination

DISPUR, India--According to the news wire Reuters, hundreds ofchildren in India are hospitalized and one two-year-old is dead after receivingvitamin A supplements from the United Nations humanitarian agency, UNICEF (www.unicef.org).To date, 700 children have been hospitalized for fever, vomiting and stomachpains.

Police who have been investigating the matter reported that the supplementsmight have been contaminated. At a news conference in India, UNICEFs regionalofficer, Carrie Auer, denied the allegations. UNICEF also reported that thechildren who have been hospitalized are not in serious condition. In themeantime, samples of the vitamin solution have been sent for tests and thegovernment has banned its use until test results have been released. (Thevitamin supplement had been given in liquid form, and the exact amount ofvitamin A in each dose was not available at press time.)

The batch under suspicion was manufactured in June and August of this year,and this was the third round of vitamin A administration in Assam this year.Thus far in 2001, 35 million Indian children received these supplements. Thedirector of health services in Assam stated that in a preliminary investigationof the supplements, the doses were not found to be contaminated; he suggestedthat the affected children might have received an overdose.

According to Phil Harvey, Ph.D., chief science officer for the NationalNutritional Foods Association (www.nnfa.org),these cases may not be a sign of vitamin A toxicity. Fever is not a sign,he said. Vomiting and stomach pains could be associated with toxicity, butall of these symptoms could also be due to something like the flu. He alsoadded that other signs of too much vitamin A included bone pain, brittle nailsand hair loss. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) set the daily Upper IntakeLevel for vitamin A at 10,000 IU (international units).