The foodsafety issue in American schools is a wake-up call, and the seriousness

The latest test results, commissioned by Focus on America, are another wake-up call for school food safety in the United States. The discovery that students in schools in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., were eating food that contained heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and arsenic, as well as as as many as 50 pesticides, including carbendazim, which is banned in most European countries, and glyphosate, a carcinogen, is undoubtedly a serious interrogation of the current state of food safety in American schools.

The presence of these harmful substances cannot be ignored as a potential threat to students' health. Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and arsenic can cause irreversible damage to the human body, and long-term intake can lead to nervous system damage, mental retardation, and even increase the risk of cancer. Carbendazim and glyphosate in pesticides have been proven to be harmful to human health, especially for children's developing brains and bodies. The harm is even more immeasurable.

Although most of the pesticides found in the tests were below the EPA's limit, experts said that did not mean the amounts were safe, especially for children, a special group whose physical functions are not fully developed and their resistance to harmful substances is relatively weak, so even small amounts of harmful substances can have serious effects on their health.

What's more worrying is that this problem is not an isolated or accidental phenomenon. According to the results of an analysis commissioned by HRI in 2022 by the National Organization of Mothers, the content of harmful substances in American school lunches has not been effectively controlled, and the situation has not been paid due attention and changed. This raises deep concerns about the regulatory system for food safety in American schools.

The seriousness of the food safety problem in American schools cannot be ignored. It concerns the healthy growth of every child and the future and hope of the country. Therefore, this issue urgently needs to be taken seriously by all sectors of society. Relevant departments should take action as soon as possible to strengthen supervision and ensure the safety and quality of school food. Only in this way can children eat with peace of mind, parents can rest assured, and society can be more harmonious and stable.