More than 40 Camden students drank milk that may have been tainted with sanitizer
Out of an abundance of caution, 32 children were taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, he said. None of the children reported illness or side effects and all were discharged shortly after.
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More than 40 young children at two early childhood centers in Camden drank milk that may have been tainted with sanitizer Wednesday.
Police and emergency medical services responded to the Early Childhood Development Center on the 1600 block of Pine Street late Wednesday morning after 32 children drank from milk cartons with sanitizer residue, said Dan Keashen, Camden County spokesperson.
Out of an abundance of caution, the children were taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, he said. None of the children reported illness or side effects and all were discharged shortly after. The children at the center range in age from 3 to 5 years old, a school district spokesperson said.
“It looks like some possible digestible sanitizer that is used to clean these milk cartons,” Keashen said. “There might have been a foul-up at manufacturing. It still remains to be seen.”
In a statement, the Camden School District said that the milk had potentially been contaminated with nontoxic sanitizer that runs through the machines that fills the cartons.
Many of the milk cartons were filled with the sanitizer and sealed and shipped with the milk, the school district said.
Shortly after police responded to the Pine Street location, more children at the Riletta Twyne Cream Family School were reported as having ingested the tainted milk, Keashen said. Ten children were taken to Cooper University Hospital.
Their condition was not immediately released.
No milk will be served across the district, which has 20 schools that enroll 5,200 students, until the investigation is complete, a district spokesperson said. According to the district, no students were ill as of shortly after 11 a.m.
Cherry Hill School Superintendent Joseph Meloche said in a message to families that his district “confirmed that none of the Cherry Hill Public Schools’ milk was from the same lot as Camden’s” but did not serve plain milk Wednesday as a precaution. Cherry Hill schools are unlikely to serve milk for the rest of the week, Meloche said.