“No child should end up in the hospital for a piece of pizza”

With the parents of around fifty other children with kidney failure linked to E. coli contamination, this couple from Hérault filed a complaint. So that “no child ends up in the hospital for a simple piece of pizza”, they confided.

The two boys of Aurélie Micouleau and John Delpech have developed what scientists call hemolytic and uremic syndromes (HUS), which particularly affect young children.

“First, there was the five-year-old”, the youngest, who “started to have a stomach ache, to vomit, to have diarrhea”, remembers Aurélie. “Simple gastro”, first responds the family doctor. A few days later, the child is however taken to the emergency room.

“There, we did not understand what was happening to us. We are told about dialysis, kidney disease, that it can go to the heart, the lungs, the brain, and that there will be lifelong sequelae, ”continues the young stay-at-home mother. The vital prognosis is at this time engaged and the boy placed on dialysis. New shock, in the process, when their 10-year-old son is hospitalized with the same symptoms.

A “race for profit”

The two boys have now returned home. But the damage to the kidneys is irreversible, assures John, who put his commercial activity on hold: “No doctor is able to tell us if their condition will deteriorate in a month or in twenty years”.

On March 18, Nestlé announced the recall withdrawal Buitoni pizzas from the Fraîch’Up range, after being informed of the presence of the bacterium in the dough of a product. In France, 53 cases are now confirmed according to the latest point from Public Health France. Investigations are underway for 26 others.

On March 22, an investigation for “manslaughter”, “deception” and “endangering the lives of others” was opened at the public health center of the Paris prosecutor’s office. In early April, the prefect of the North banned the production of pizzas at the Buitoni factory in Caudry, near Cambrai. The inspections “highlighted a degraded level of food hygiene control”.

“I expect justice to do its job. Let’s look at why we got there, why they took so long to close the plant. They are still big groups, I don’t see how we can accept having factories in this state, ”is indignant Mr. Delpech, denouncing the “race for profit at all costs”.

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