Free school meals kill Indian children

[panzerfaust]

25. Update from IHT/NYT

School meal programs in India, like many government programs, are rife with fraud. Corruption has long been endemic in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. ...

After seeing the children get sick, the school’s teachers and administrators fled the school, according to Dr. Shambhu Nath Singh, the deputy superintendent of the government hospital in Bihar’s Saran District. Parents took the children to the hospital. Seven were dead on arrival and seven others died soon after, Dr. Singh said...

Many are involved in managing the food programs, including teachers, village elders and state officials, he said.

“All these people look for easy money and there is very little scope of making money without compromising the quality and quantity ...”

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/21-children-die-from-poisoned-lunches-at-indian-school/?hpw

Apparently it was an organophosphate.

These chemicals were discovered by the German chemical company IG Farben in the 1930's and developed by the NAZIs as nerve-gases. There are conflicting reports of whether or not the Germans tested these gases on Jews and other "undesirables." In any event, they did not routinely use these agents in the extermination camps preferring the much cheaper (and safer to handle) Zyklon-B - a mixture of hydrogen cyanide and prussic acid, also manufactured by IG Farben.

After the war IG Farben was broken up into some of its constituent companies - e.g. BASF, Bayer, Hoechst and Agfa - many of which continue as international corporations today.

Looking at the image from the hospital, it is doubtful to me that the hospital had the resources to effectively treat even a single case of such poisoning - much less the number which presented.