What's next? Big Foot patrols?
Sheriff John Zaruba has announced that he is going to keep the DuPage County Crime Lab open 48 hours straight so that residents can get a "suspicious or questionable treat" tested. This time and money is going to protect us from a crime that has, since 1960, killed or injured only how many children? 100? 50? 10? 1?
No, the answer is 0. Even if the answer were 10, out of the hundreds of millions of trick-or-treaters during that 50-year span, it would not justify national crime lab mobilization. But, no, the answer is "0." No one has ever been injured by a random Halloween candy poisoning. As a matter of fact, the only cases of Halloween candy poisoning (just a couple) were done by the child's family. Please see Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoned_candy_scare); Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp); Competitive Enterprise Institute (http://cei.org/gencon/019,03744. cfm); Mommy Myth Buster (http://mommymythbuster.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/myth-28-children-get-poisoned-on-halloween/).
It is a shame that through, I presume, ignorance, Sheriff Zaruba lends the authority of his office to the perpetuation of one of the myths that ramps up parents' anxieties unnecessarily. I certainly hope that this is not a manipulation of mythic fears to gain political capital. And, finally, I hope that the sheriff's grasp of other crime statistics is more grounded in reality, lest we find officers assigned to Leprechaun patrol in March, and Big Foot watches in the forest preserves year-round.
Dave Basener
Wheaton