Deadly Cookies

Of all the poisons man has concocted to combat his insect and rodent enemies, thallium sulfate is one of the most potent. Vermin can hardly stay away from it; they go right on nibbling baits containing the chemical until they have absorbed a fatal dose. Trouble is, children are likely to do the same, because thallium-sulfate baits are often put up in the shape of doughnuts or made of crumbled cookies. Last week, after years of tracking down victims of infantile curiosity, the A.M.A. Journal reported that nine Texas children died of proven thallium-sulfate poisoning between 1954 and 1959, and at least 26 others suffered lasting brain damage. Other cases have been reported from New York to Oregon, but they are most common in the South, where pesticides are most needed. U.S. Public Health Service researchers and their Texas colleagues report that "disturbing numbers of cases are still occurring throughout the Southern states."

Thallium sulfate (the inexpensive salt of a metal akin to lead) was used by some dermatologists as late as 1940 to make a patient's hair fall out--which made it easier to treat ringworm of the scalp. After such treatment hundreds of patients became ill, and scores died. Thallium salts were shunted from the medicine cabinet to the poison shelf. In 1957, the Texas legislature cut the allowable dose of thallium sulfate in a rat-poison mixture from 3% to 1%; the U.S. Department of Agriculture did the same in 1960. But even the weaker mixture is dangerous: it takes only half an ounce of chemically adulterated cookies to kill an average three-year-old. And 15 of the cases in the A.M.A. Journal study developed after the new law was passed.

Besides the nine children who died, the other 26 were found--months or years after their accidental poisoning--to be suffering from uncontrolled and abnormal movements, severe mental illness or retardation, or combinations of these handicaps. Several of the children had to be sent to institutions for the mentally retarded. Since no safe and effective treatment for thallium poisoning has yet been perfected, doctors say that the only way to protect children against it is to forbid completely the use of thallium sulfate in preparations for household use.

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