And in August, the California Department of Health Services warned consumers that lead has been found in four treats that U.S. authorities have not barred. The candies are Lucas Limón, Lucas Acidito, Super Lucas and Super Jovy Chili Powder. The notice did not order retailers to take the products off shelves.

The issue can confuse consumers: Why are the products sold if the state is warning consumers to avoid them?

Dr. Richard Joseph Jackson, the state’s public health officer, said there are two reasons.

First, he said, only the federal government has authority to ban a product from being imported.

And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t banned the powdery candies, said Jackson, a pediatrician who formerly headed the Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta.

Second, he said, different levels of lead create different levels of risk.

“If it were life-threatening, we would have somebody out pulling things off shelves,” he said.

But “we do not expect the levels being found in this candy would cause lead poisoning,” said Dr. Jackson. Lead in candy is more of a “low-level, chronic threat,” he said.

Jackson said it would never work to scour the state’s shelves for tainted candy — borders are too porous. Instead, he said, state and federal officials are trying to pressure Mexican companies to change the way they make candy.

Fruit better than candy, anyway

In the meantime, local public health nurse Virginia McClain said people should not panic, although they should feed children healthy snacks such as fruit, rather than candy.

McClain works for Stanislaus County’s childhood lead- poisoning prevention program. “I’ve never seen any (lead poisoning) cases in the county where candy was a factor,” she said.

Though she said she has seen lead-tainted candy in the county, the poisoning came from other substances.

One Stanislaus County case, which officials reported to the Centers for Disease Control in 1999, started with lead-tainted candy. The real problem, though, was a home remedy.

The case involved a 4-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl with severe lead poisoning, the CDC reported in an August 2002 publication.

Health workers found Mexican “Bolirindo” lollipops in the family’s home with lead levels higher than the allowable limit of 0.5 parts per million. But they also found something much worse.

What sickened the children was an old-time folk remedy from Mexico, a powder called “greta,” the CDC reported. The parents had given it, believing it was medicine, but it was almost pure lead.

Some folk medicines full of lead

Lead-loaded folk medicines come from various cultures: “Paylooah” is one from southeast Asia. The greta in the Stanislaus County case tested at 770,000 parts per million of lead, or 77 percent, according to the CDC report.

Parents give greta and similar substances with loving intentions, thinking they are helpful medicines, McClain said. But too often, there are tragic results, she added.

The greta case is one of about 17 severe, ongoing cases where Stanislaus County health workers are still trying to bring down children’s blood lead levels years later.

McClain said lead poisoning usually comes from a few common risk factors.

Lead-tainted paint, from houses built before 1978, is the most common. Dirt, polluted with old lead-acetate fertilizer, is next.

Lead dust, carried from contaminated work sites on parents’ clothes, contributes to 22 percent of lead-poisoning cases, the state estimates.

McClain said paint and home remedies are the major causes in the “really bad” cases she sees.

“It’s just a long-term, lingering thing,” McClain said of those cases, where children have extremely high blood lead that won’t come out.

“If it’s high enough, it will go in their bones. It will leach out in times of stress,” she said. A pregnant woman with that type of long-term lead poisoning can pass it to her child.

But McClain said candy has not caused the bad cases she’s seen.

“I would not want people in the community to panic about the candy,” she said.

Low levels cause problems, too

Still, the state health department warned in its notice about powdery Mexican candies, there is cause for concern:

State test results showed up to 1.1 parts per million of lead in the Lucas candy, well above the federal and state regulatory standard of 0.5 parts per million.

“Even relatively low levels (of lead) can cause learning disabilities and behavioral problems in children,” the notice warned.

That’s why Jackson, the state’s chief health officer, said the state is working to create pressure for Mexican candy makers to make their products safer.

“You need … to deal with the manufacturers and get them to upgrade,” he said.

Warning labels may be required

This summer, the state Attorney General’s office sued 33 Mexican candy manufacturers under Proposition 65, a state law that requires warning labels on products containing even small quantities of toxic substances.

Proposition 65, approved by ballot initiative in 1986, requires warning labels on anything that could cause cancer or birth defects. It allows private citizens or the state to sue if companies fail to warn the public about toxic chemicals in products.

The warning labels can be required, even on legal products with far less than 0.5 parts per million of lead, said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

The manufacturers contend Proposition 65 doesn’t apply to trace amounts of naturally occurring substances, which they say is the case with lead levels in the candy.

Bee staff writer Blair Craddock can be reached at 892-1794 or bcraddock@modbee.com