Floor Sealant served as Milk to Elementary Students in Alaska

[PurgedVoter]

Source: NPR

"Students at an elementary school in Alaska complained on Tuesday morning about bad-tasting milk that burned their mouths and throats. Staff quickly realized the students had accidentally been served floor sealant.

A dozen students at Sitʼ Eeti Shaanx̱ Glacier Valley Elementary School in Juneau ingested the floor sealant during breakfast, according to the Juneau School District. One child was treated at Bartlett Regional Hospital, and two others were picked up from the school and may have sought medical attention.

The students, all of whom were participating in the school's Relationships and Leadership, Learning for Youth (RALLY) program, were served what they believed was milk by NANA Management Services (NMS), an Alaska-based food and facility services corporation."



Read more: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105644787/alaska-students-drank-floor-sealant-not-milk-breakfast-juneau

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Apart from the gallon bottle being white, it has no resemblance to milk and the labeling is clear and the cap is not a typical cap for milk. It would have taken a very unobservant person who should not be allowed near food to make this accident and this should not have been stored near food in any case, especially not in a refrigerated area. Seems unlikely that this was an accident.

[OnlinePoker]

1. This was a blatant and likely criminal act

Last edited Fri Jun 17, 2022, 08:59 AM - Edit history (1)

Based on the name, there is likely to be a large indigenous population in the school.

[Rural_Progressive]

2. Ah sh*t

I would really prefer not to believe that was the reason but.....

[niyad]

5. That was my first thought. There is no way that could have been an accident.

[Igel]

27. I'm going with accident.

You open a carton of milk and put the bag in the cow (that's what we called the milk dispensers--see pic at https://www.food-management.com/k-12-schools/milk-dispensers-reduce-waste-olympia-schools ).

Then you open the carton next to it. And maybe the one next to that. The boxes look similar, you're in a hurry, English isn't your first language or reading isn't something you're great at and, you know, once the bags are in the cow nobody's going to see anything but the end of a tube. Maybe malicious, but if a contractor had hired the cheapest labor?

The stuff's white and odorless. You do like in that picture--you fill up a bunch of cups and let them sit for the kids to pick up. And do you this quickly because there are other tasks to do, maybe while talking to somebody else and looking at them. (We didn't do that at the restaurant, but it was a restaurant.)

[yardwork]

26. Looks that way.

[Bluethroughu]

3. Horrible!

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

Weiss said the milk and the floor sealant, which is also a milky, white substance, both come in large plastic bags that are stored inside cardboard boxes. For the milk, the pouch is removed from the box and placed inside the dispenser to serve with meals instead of in cartons.

Both the milk and sealant were stored at a district commodity storage site off campus.

Weiss said that somehow, boxes with sealant in large pouches were “stored or moved on the same pallet as large pouches of milk that were also in cardboard boxes.”

“We don’t know how that happened, but they were all put on the same pallet,” she said. “That pallet was delivered, and the assumption was that it was milk because that’s what we thought was being delivered.”

Part of the investigation will be to determine why food items were stored in the same building as chemicals.

https://www.kbtx.com/2022/06/15/alaska-kids-served-sealant-instead-milk-school-program/

[cstanleytech]

7. Regardless if it was intentional or not the ones responsible should be found and fired.

[Rebl2]

15. Absolutely

[NBachers]

6. NANA Management Services (NMS), an Alaska-based food and facility services corporation.

Maybe I've got this wrong, but the Lunch Ladies in my school, yes, a long time ago, wouldn't have done this. Maybe a kitchen staff of regular school employees would be a bit more conscientious than a "food and facility services corporation."

[Maggiemayhem]

9. This ......

[Crowman2009]

18. Another example of privatization run amok.

[RobinA]

19. Yep

School lunch service is NOT what it was in the Boomer years, and not in a good way. It’s all prefab, stick a package in a microwave junk food. We had some good stuff and not so good stuff, but it did bear a pretty good resemblance to real food. Milk came in individual cartons with « milk » printed on them. Quaint, I know.

[jmowreader]

8. I must know

Are students in the RALLY program required to turn their noses in at the start of the day?

I happen to own 24 gallons of Hillyard Seal 341, which the article says is the product in question. We use it on floors we don't want stained. It smells nothing like milk, and you'd think someone would have noticed that before they took a swig of it.

[Maggiemayhem]

10. They were children served by adults. It seems intentional if that's what you mean.

[csziggy]

14. EDITED - Shouldn't the adults serving the product have smelled the difference?

There was no odor or chemical smell to the sealant, but school standards dictate that any chemical used must have a low ingestion risk.

https://www.kbtx.com/2022/06/15/alaska-kids-served-sealant-instead-milk-school-program/

[csziggy]

17. I just edited my post with a quote from an article

Apparently the stuff served didn't have a smell to alert any one it was not milk.

There was no odor or chemical smell to the sealant, but school standards dictate that any chemical used must have a low ingestion risk.
https://www.kbtx.com/2022/06/15/alaska-kids-served-sealant-instead-milk-school-program/

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Many Acrylic Formulations...

...are aqueous suspensions, using a (usually) nonionic/anionic mix of surfactants.
They don't require any solvent other than water.
That said, even polyacrylates have an odor distinct from food.
Think of how a freshly painted room smells.
It's not a harsh chemical odor, but smells nothing like milk.
Still something odd about this.

[csziggy]

23. I was wondering about this

We built a house in 2007/2008 and added on in 2020. Even though I selected all water based finishes with low VOC, the house smelled for ages afterwards.

The one exception was the red oak flooring in the addition. The floor guy ignored my specifications and used oil based Bona floor finish. I couldn't open up that room for over three months to the rest of the house and could smell it even with the original exterior door between closed. Aside from that, the floor guy delayed us for a couple of months since he didn't show up on time, interfered with other workers and was a general asshole. I'm glad I will not be putting in any other floors ever.

[csziggy]

24. Maybe the people preparing the milk were COVID victims and had no sense of smell?

Unless it was malice, this seems possible. That and pure stupidity, storing food and chemicals in the same place.

[ProfessorGAC]

25. Is Loss Of Sense Of Smell...

...a common long term symptom?
According to this, it's rare.
https://www.nhsinform.scot/long-term-effects-of-covid-19-long-covid/signs-and-symptoms/long-covid-loss-of-smell-or-taste/#:~:text=These%20changes%20don't%20usually,may%20be%20more%20long%2Dterm.
And, having cleaning or kitchen maintenance items in proximity to food is probably more common that we'd like to think.

[niyad]

28. According to another thread on this, it is claimed that the sealant is odorless.

But pretty sure milk is not chalky.

[IronLionZion]

11. Sounds intentional and malicious, not an accident

Even if it was an incompetent person making a mistake, this is way too dangerous. That person needs to pay consequences.

[eggplant]

12. It wasn't necessarily malice. Anyne remember PBB in Michigan?

https://www.circleofblue.org/2018/world/remembering-michigans-pbb-crisis/

[RevBrotherThomas]

13. WHAT FRESH F**KERY IS THIS???

nt

[pfitz59]

20. Mixing chemicals with food

in same delivery. Bad idea, and most likely against law and policy. Chemicals must be clearly marked with warning labels. Someone screwed up. I doubt it was deliberate.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Very Common, Though

Food service companies sell all products to run a kitchen.
And, no there is no law prohibiting this. There is, of course, laws about chemical labeling, which i doubt was violated.
As you said, someone screwed up. Big time!