Pill in Cake; Case Referred to Cyber Police

The Food and Drug Organization says the presence of pills in cakes from schools in three provinces could be a security matter. The Ministry of Education denied issuing a circular to avoid cake consumption. The Ministry of Health said investigating the reasons is outside its jurisdiction.

Discovery of pills in students’ cakes; pills that could possibly be psychotropic, addictive, and poisonous. This is news that has been circulating on social networks since Tuesday, December 9th. A concerning issue observed in three provinces, yet no official department or authority has taken responsibility for responding and confirming the substance of the issue.

Reports are limited to three or four cases of pill-containing cakes, but are contradictory and unofficial. The Ministry of Education denies issuing a circular to schools to avoid using pill-contaminated cakes. The General Director of Health and Wellness at the Ministry of Education says we don’t know the truth or falsehood of the matter, but we have informed the Ministry of Health of reports received from three provinces.

Tasnim, quoting residents of Chabahar, Konarak, and Saravan in Sistan and Baluchestan, reports finding pills in chocolate, wafers, and cakes. According to this news agency and based on the announcement of the public relations of a food products manufacturer, the first case was observed in Bandar Abbas.

Bahrooz Dehghani, Acting Head of Chabahar Health Center, told Tasnim that such a case was first seen in Konarak and after reports in Chabahar, all suspicious cakes were collected from the city level at the prosecutor’s suggestion: “We still don’t think this happened by the factories, but we collected all products from commercial units.”

Online News, quoting the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Iranian Food Industries, reported the sealing of suspicious cake warehouses and writes: “… considering that contaminating cakes with pills occurred in border provinces, it was possibly done with the intent to smuggle psychotropic pills…

Kianosh Jahanpour, spokesman for the Food and Drug Organization, says: “The presence of pills in cakes and food products appears to be a rumor and a security matter, and accurate documentation for this issue has not been observed and reported.”

Jahanpour added that anyone familiar with the food production process knows such a thing is not possible in mechanized cake and wafer production: “This matter is not of the nature of food safety and health, and naturally the cyber police and security police are investigating the matter.”

The Food and Drug Organization spokesman asked the public to report if they have evidence in this regard: “Many people who made this claim have not provided information so far. The claim has also been raised for various companies and in one province it has been pursued more, while the products in question were produced outside this province and sent to the entire country.”

Suspicious Cakes and “Psychological Insecurity”

Fatima Norouzian, Public Relations Director of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, says 30 pill samples found from 12 food companies have been sent to us by the public, none of which are similar: “The samples sent to this university were all open and it cannot be confirmed whether the presence of pills or capsules in the product was from the place of production or not.”

She says no cases of poisoning have been observed yet and hundred-unit cartons of various products were also randomly inspected, but none contained foreign objects. Ms. Norouzian considered the issue an unethical behavior that causes psychological insecurity among society members.

According to the president of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, it is still unclear whether pills were placed in students’ cakes or not. The public relations of this university also emphasized that the matter is suspicious, and only in one case did a family in Saravan find two white pills between their student’s cake: “The cake was open during inspection… the matter was quickly investigated and even the commercial unit that sold this cake was inspected, but no other cases were found.”

In the latest reactions, the Education Organization of Khuzestan Province denied the presence of pill-containing cakes in schools of the province, but the police information website quoted the head of Hormozgan’s anti-narcotics police: “Several cakes containing a limited number of pills were discovered from a Nissan vehicle, and investigations regarding this are ongoing.”

Source: DW