Infectious Diseases: Imported Hepatitis

The brightly colored plastic balls, about the size of a walnut and filled with water, seem just the thing for summer on the patio. Taken from the freezer and dropped into a drink, they don't melt and dilute the gin and tonic the way old-fashioned ice cubes do. And if Mother has bought pink ones shaped like elephants, the kiddies tend to clamor for them in softer drinks. But the freeze balls, made in Hong Kong and filled with water there, are apt to leak. When they do, the medical effects can be more chilling than the customer bargained for.

An aircraft repairman at Travis Air Force Base in California was admitted to the base hospital with severe malaise and nausea and passing dark urine. Liver function was abnormal, and a laboratory examination showed evidence of infectious hepatitis. Within 24 hours, not only the man's wife but all their eight children had telltale symptoms of hepatitis. A team of Air Force medics headed by Major Ralph D. Reynolds reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine that the virtually certain source was water leaking from the freeze balls. The water also carried whooping-cough germs, an amoeba and four species of bacteria, including at least three that cause dysentery. There was a strong suggestion of "fecal contamination."

The Air Force man's liver trouble persisted for five months, his wife's for six weeks. The children were not so severely ill, and the six younger got off lighter than the two elder—a paradox of hepatitis that doctors cannot explain.

New York City's Department of Health has forbidden the sale of the drink coolers. Federal authorities have seized some imports and alerted state officials to confiscate stocks already in retail stores.