A Shot at Prevention

Hundreds of children, along with a few teachers and cafeteria workers, dropped their pants and winced Thursday as they took a shot to ward off the hepatitis A virus at a trio of makeshift school inoculation clinics.

Though health officials were recommending that only those who ate a potentially tainted strawberry/blueberry treat receive the immune serum globulin, some parents and school administrators were not taking any chances.

At Coldwater Canyon Avenue Elementary School in North Hollywood, office assistant Beatriz Fermin said some students, faced with the prospect of a hypodermic needle in the buttocks, suddenly were suspiciously sure they hadn’t eaten the fruit.

“We had some kids say, as soon as we told them about the inoculations, ‘Oh, I remember! I didn’t eat any strawberries--really, I didn’t,’ ” she said. They were immunized anyway, she said, “just to be safe.”

They were among about 180 students and a handful of adults--school district employees who handled the strawberries--who were given shots Thursday at Coldwater, said Principal Jill Fager.

Sixth-graders Mayra Perez and Brenda Calderon braved a bevy of news cameras and the ominous sight of gloved, syringe-bearing nurses to become the first recipients of the injections, given in a Los Angeles County Department of Health Services van.

As Mayra exited the van with a sticker and a piece of candy in hand, she said the shot “hurt a little bit, but less than I thought it would. It was scary.”

Other students waited on a bench outside the van--some fidgeting nervously and others cheering on their friends as their names were called.

Today, six more clinics will open, followed by eight more next week. The shots can cost up to $18 apiece. The corporate parent of the firm that processed the offending strawberries has offered to pay for all shots given in Los Angeles.

The hepatitis scare broke Tuesday when authorities announced that 9,000 children and others in the Los Angeles Unified School District had eaten a dessert made from the same batch of strawberries implicated in a hepatitis outbreak in Michigan. More than 175 cases have been reported in Michigan. So far, no cases have been reported locally, but the usual two-week period between exposure and the onset of symptoms is only half over.

In other developments Thursday:

* About 1,000 children in Georgia also received shots. In Michigan, health officials were trying to track down 1,400 people who attended a Special Olympics event March 22 that featured strawberry shortcake made with the suspect fruit.

* School officials acknowledged that they had failed to notify one of the 18 Los Angeles campuses where the berry dessert was served. At Mt. Vernon Middle School in the Crenshaw district, 122 students were served the fruit Monday--three days after a notice not to offer the desserts went out to schools.

* The federal Food and Drug Administration offered a few more details about the possibility that strawberries from Andrew & Williamson Sales Co., the San Diego food processor that sliced, washed and froze the berries a year ago, had also found their way into some commercial products.

Frozen strawberries from the firm were apparently used in jams, jellies, pies and frozen daiquiri mix, said Jim O’Hara, an FDA spokesman. In some cases, such products have been located and recalled as part of Andrew & Williamson’s voluntary recall of the berries.

“In all likelihood, these products would have been consumed some time ago,” O’Hara said. But he added that the agency is “continuing to go down the chain of distribution. [Some] products two to three levels down have been put on hold.”

Rumors circulated among some parents of possible problems with the inoculations themselves. At Coldwater Canyon School, mother Mirta Santana wanted assurances before she let her 10-year-old daughter Tania Sanchez get the shot. She wondered if the inoculations--which are derived from blood--could be contaminated with illnesses far worse than hepatitis A, including HIV.

Nurses persuaded her that could not be the case. In an interview, county disease control director Shirley L. Fannin said such fears are unfounded because the serum is carefully screened.

“The gamma globulin is as pure as the FDA can make it,” Fannin said.

Pondered Santana after consenting: “My kids are my life, so I have to do what’s best for them. But it’s hard--which risk is more? I hope this is for good and not for bad.”

A Thursday afternoon district committee meeting at district headquarters was dominated by a speaker-phone conversation between school board members Julie Korenstein and Victoria Castro and two U.S. Department of Agriculture officials.

Leaning over the phone, Korenstein quizzed the acting undersecretary of food, nutrition and consumer services, Mary Ann Keeffe, about whether other surplus food provided to schools was safe.

“As the mother of four children, I don’t think you need to be nervous or fearful,” Keeffe answered. “It’s a very strong system, and we have a very safe food supply in this country.”

Meanwhile, at the Coldwater Canyon school, students waited on a bench outside the inoculation van, some fidgeting nervously and others cheering on their friends as their names were called.

Some parents accompanied their children for the sometimes daunting experience. Claudia Palacios held her tearful 6-year-old son, Angel, after he “went kicking and screaming” into the van.

“He told me last night that he wouldn’t go if I wasn’t there with him,” she said. “I had a job interview today, but they’ll understand.”

After shedding some tears, Angel found a small smile, and said, “I feel OK. It hurt.”

“I feel safer now,” Claudia said. “He said he ate all of the strawberries, didn’t waste a bit.”

Principal Fager said that because Coldwater was one of the first schools to serve the strawberries, the district wanted to inoculate the children as quickly as possible. Staff of the year-round school phoned parents of children who were out of class and asked them to bring their children to the clinic and sign consent forms.

Fager said nearly all the parents responded promptly, and those that could not make it to the clinic or return consent forms in time will be able to take their children to a follow-up clinic soon.

A few employees from the school district’s truck operations even showed up at the county van parked outside Coldwater Canyon School. One of them said his wife persuaded him to go along with the inoculations after the district recommended that the 17 delivery workers who handled the fruit get shots. Another admitted that he got the shot for another reason: He had tried some of the new strawberry/blueberry dessert while making his rounds.

County and school district health officials patted themselves on the back for the “very successful” first day of inoculations.

“I think things went very smoothly,” said Dr. Helen DuPlessis, director of student medical services for the school district.

Though the first day’s efforts were covered by the department’s own reserves of immune serum globulin, enough serum arrived from the Michigan health department Thursday to complete 9,000 inoculations if necessary, officials said, and more is available if needed.

Officials reiterated that hepatitis A is a relatively mild form of the virus, particularly in children. Fannin said the virus is reported only about 10% of the time it is contracted. In 1995, just 1,033 cases were reported in Los Angeles County. The statewide occurrence rate is almost twice as high as Los Angeles’, a fact Fannin attributed to the more common outbreaks in northern rural counties.

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, amid discussion of class-size reduction efforts, Gov. Pete Wilson paused to urge shoppers “not to panic and blame those who are not guilty of anything, notably California’s berry farmers.” He described a call to his office from a Watsonville grower, who said he had a large order canceled within hours of the announcement of the school lunch problem.

Wilson noted that this is the second straight year that California berries have been affected by problems beyond growers’ control; last year, the products were mistakenly linked to a parasite. “It is distinctly unfair, and it doesn’t make sense. . . . The berries in question were imported,” Wilson said.

Times staff writers Amy Pyle, Hector Tobar and Martha Groves contributed to this story.