Local News in Brief : Cereal Removed After 2nd Report of Illness

In the second possible incident of food tampering in two days, the manager of a Calabasas supermarket Sunday pulled boxes of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats off the store’s shelves after a woman complained of illness from eating the sugar-coated cereal, authorities said.

Florie Ayalon, 25, of Calabasas, told authorities she bought the cereal July 23 and ate it periodically throughout the week, each time experiencing nausea, vomiting, cramping, diarrhea and a choking sensation in her throat, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Dinsmoor said. Ayalon contacted sheriff’s deputies Sunday.

Although there is no proof of contamination, the manager of a Ralphs supermarket in Calabasas said she voluntarily removed the six remaining boxes of cereal with the bar code number BA022.

In a similar incident Saturday in Lawndale, Vivian Starkovich, 20, ate some Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats bought at a Luckys market in Hawthorne and suffered a burning throat, cramps and a rash on both hands, Sheriff’s Sgt. Chris Gutierrez said. She was treated by a doctor who, when shown a sample of the cereal, told her that he “detected a chemical on the product” and that she should notify authorities, Gutierrez said.

Los Angeles County Health Services officials are investigating the incident.

“We will not know if the cereal was tainted until it can be tested,” Gutierrez said.

Neither of the cereal boxes appeared to have been tampered with, Gutierrez said.