Nearly a week after over 1,000 public school students in the Cibao region became violently ill from drinking bad milk in the national school breakfast program, mysteries remain about the milk’s contaminants and supplier while irate parents and civic groups are clamoring for changes in the way the Education Ministry handles the program. Yesterday the national testing laboratories at the Dominican Institute for Industrial Technology (INDOTEC) revealed the results of its tests of the milk: it found at least 22 types of bacterial contaminants. INDOTEC will not deliver its final report to the Public Health and Education Ministries until today, after it has conducted a few more tests. The Education Ministry has been criticized for the incident, and a number of parents, civil and consumer groups have called on the Ministry to identify and punish the company that supplied the bad product and to begin having the school breakfast program supplied via public tenders that emphasize quality control guarantees (presently the contracts are awarded without taking bids). The Ministry has refused to identify the milk supplier. Yesterday the maker of Nutrilac, reported by many newspapers as the alleged supplier, took out ads in major dailies to deny the charge, stressing that it has never contracted with the Education Ministry. In recent days, parents and parish priests have come forward to claim that they have been complaining about the quality of the program’s food for months, but in the past were threatened by local Education officials to lose the breakfast program benefits if they did not stop criticizing the program.
