The flavored water enhancer, MiO may be to blame for students becoming sick in Visalia.
It was a pretty scary situation inside Mountain View Elementary.
Director of Health Services Suzie Skadan says, "We had ten students suddenly start vomiting and we didn't know exactly why."
Ten students in the same fifth grade classroom, all became sick at the same time. School officials say the kids were vomiting, light-headed and nauseous. Minutes later, four other kids in a fourth grade classroom started complaining of the same symptoms.
"We had some nurses go assess the situation and discovered that the kids had ingested some MiO, which is a water enhancer."
MiO is a trendy water flavoring. The liquid comes in small bottles. It's highly concentrated and is meant to be diluted. But instead of mixing it with water, students ingested the substance straight out of the bottle.
"Some of the students had it and they put it on their hand and licked it," says Skadan.
Terra Gorman, parent says, "Kids don't know. If it looks like candy or whatever, so that's a really hard situation because kids think it's candy or some sweet drink."
The ten students were rushed to the hospital, where they were treated and released. School officials say it's not clear if each student drank MiO, or if the substance is to blame for the sudden sickness.
But one pediatrician says the two could be related.
Dr. Waldo Henriquez says, "If the drink is not diluted then they can get more gastritis, which is stomach inflammation. They can get inflammation of the intestines or bowel and have any sickness from dehydration or abdominal pain."
Dr. Henriquez says there's one simple lesson here, follow instructions and never drink the water enhancer without water.
"We'll talk to the students and make sure something like this doesn't occur again. It's an unusual situation that just happened to occur," says Skadan.
There are a couple of versions of MiO on the shelves. One of them is energy based, but that was not what the kids in the case had ingested.
A website for the product states MiO is safe for children to drink, but it does recommend seeking advice from pediatricians first.
The Visalia Fire Department tested the classrooms to make sure nothing in the air contributed to the students getting sick. Officials say no problems were found.
TXT 24
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