Caffeine poisoning hits 600 children.

The City’s Health Department is investigating how energy chewing gum, whose sell-by date had expired, landed up in the hands of more than 600 children who have been treated for possible caffeine overload.

On Tuesday Fisantekraal residents milled around the clinic next to the Trevor Manuel Primary School when children complained of stomach pains and headaches.

As the day progressed more and more children arrived at the clinic complaining of similar symptoms and were taken to hospitals across the city.

It is believed the Blitz Caffeine Energy Gum was dumped by a company on a farm in Fisantekraal, near Durbanville.

Some of Trevor Manuel Primary School pupils collected the dumped sweets and sold them to fellow pupils and other Fisantekraal residents for 50c a pack.

The schools’ principal, Edward Rasmus, said more than 600 of his pupils were affected.

He said the children all had similar complaints, which were primarily stomach and head pains.

“We can’t say it is the gum that caused it and we can’t say it isn’t,” Rasmus said, adding, however, that the chewing gum was the common thread.

“The concern is that the gum has been spread through the whole community, because the children who picked it up on the farm sold it everywhere,” he said.

Chantell Basson, who lives close to the school, was at the clinic when the first three pupils came in.

She said the two boys and a girl were crying and had severe stomach pains. One of the boys collapsed in pain.

“The nurses gave them glucose water and then more children came in with the same stomach cramps,” said Basson.

Yesterday the city’s Health Department director, Dr Ivan Bromfield, said the product was not meant to be consumed by children.

The gum’s packaging says that it is not recommended for children, pregnant or breast feeding women or caffeine sensitive people.

It also says that one pack is the equivalent of six energy drinks.

Bromfield said medical experts assumed that the children who were receiving treatment may have suffered a caffeine overload.

“We will be investigating how the product came to be on the farm and why the children had access to it,” he said

Laticia Pienaar, spokeswoman for Tygerberg Hospital, confirmed last night that seven girls and three boys were kept overnight for observation. She said they were in a stable condition, showed no signs of food poisoning and would be discharged later today.

The provincial Health Department’s medical rescue services confirmed they received the first call to attend to the children at 10am yesterday.

Metro Rescue’s Emergency Medical Service’s (EMS) Keri Davids said they transported 174 children, between the ages of seven and 14, to the Tygerberg and Karl Bremer hospitals and to the Kraaifontein, Delft and Elsies River community health clinics.

An EMS doctor also treated and discharged 419 children at the Fisantekraal clinic.

The children were treated for stomach cramps, headaches, lethargy and vomiting, Davids said.

Albert Ngetu, the father of 10-year-old Zandry Ngetu, raced to the clinic after she started vomiting.

A panicked Ngetu, said he had made Zandry drink milk after she had told him she ate the chewing gum.

“And then she started vomiting and couldn’t stop,” he said.

Police spokesman Warrant Officer November Filander confirmed this morning that they were assisting health department officials in tracing the origins of the expired chewing gum and that an inquest docket had been opened.

Disaster Risk Management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said it was not clear when laboratory tests on the chewing gum would be completed. (from IOL)

Cops raid Dagga Party leader's home

Police raided the home of the leader of the Dagga Party of South Africa, but all they found were a few seeds.

Jeremy Acton, whose party is registered in the Langeberg Municipality to contest the May 18 local government elections, said he was not at his Montagu farmhouse when police arrived early on Friday, but they questioned one of his workers and took him to the police station.

“They took all the pips and took photographs of my marijuana graphics and a poem I have for meditation.”

Acton, who was in Robertson at the time, said he wasn’t sure if a warrant had been issued for his arrest, but he wasn’t planning to return to Montagu until tomorrow.

Acton had taken his Dagga Party pamphlets to the police in Montagu and explained that he was fighting to get the herb legalised. He said he’d heard the police wanted to stop his efforts. (from IOL)

This raid is in contravention of Mr Acton's constitutional right to free political activity. Only a moron of a magistrate would sign a search warrant for a political party.

Zero alcohol limit proposal

Drivers in South Africa could soon be banned from drinking any alcohol at all before getting behind the wheel.

John Motsatsing, chief director of road transport regulation in the Department of Transport, said the government was seriously considering a zero alcohol limit for all drivers.

“Irrespective of how many drinks you’ve had, you cannot judge if you are over the alcohol limit, because you are not an expert,” he said. “So why can we not say no drinking at all if you are driving?

“We are going to do away with the alcohol limit. We are drafting a document and will put it out for public comment.”

At least 203 people were killed in road accidents during the Easter weekend, according The Road Traffic Management Corporation.

It is estimated that almost half of all weekend motor vehicle crash victims at public hospitals are injured as a result of abuse of alcohol.

In metropolitan roadblocks one in every 10 drivers tested is above the legal alcohol limit, according to the corporation’s Ishref Ismail.

The reports listed that 57 percent of drivers tested positive for alcohol in 2008, an increase of 16 percent from the statistics compiled in 2002.

The reports showed alarming growth in alcohol use by all road users, with an overall 6 percent increase by 2008 in the number of people who died in traffic accidents while they had alcohol in the bloodstream compared to 2002.

Robin Carlisle, Western Cape Transport MEC, said the plan was “bold and dramatic”, but “wishful thinking”.

He said while close to 700 people had been killed on the country’s roads as a result of drunkenness last month, the government needed to get the basics right first.

“The emphasis should be on those who drive drunk, not those who have a drink and drive.”

Caro Smit, director of South Africans Against Drunk Driving, said her organisation understood that it was difficult to have total zero but that they would support a 0.02 limit which allows some sort of reasonable leeway for measurement error – especially to avoid criminalising people for taking medicine like cough mixture.

“We feel strongly that the alcohol limit should be lowered drastically,” she said. “However, it is no use lowering the limit if authorities are not going to catch those who drink and drive… we still do not have enough testing…”

Alta Swanepoel, independent traffic and transport consultant, said a zero alcohol limit might be hard to police.

“We don’t have enough traffic officers to take on hundreds of people and charge them.” (from IOL)