Contaminated wheat flour in Brittany: dozens of poisonings including five children

En Bretagne, des dizaines d’intoxications après la consommation de farine de blé noire

The ARS of Brittany is warning of numerous cases of food poisoning after the consumption of black wheat flour from the JP Cloteau brand. Some batches are in fact contaminated with "datura". What is it about ?

Since April 26, the Brittany Regional Health Agency has received dozens of reports of food poisoning (49 so far including 5 children according to our colleagues at BFMTV) in connection with the consumption of organic buckwheat flour from the JP Cloteau brand bearing batch number 2A, to be consumed preferably before March 2025. In question: the presence of datura in buckwheat seeds.

#RappelProduit Farine de Blé Noir – J.P. Cloteau

Risques : Datura (alcaloïdes tropaniques)

Motif : Contamination aux alcaloïdes tropaniqueshttps://t.co/okPr7p1aU6 pic.twitter.com/Uoi5OepUs7

— RappelConso (@RappelConso) April 29, 2024

Powerful hallucinations

The datura – also called devil's weed or witch's weed – is a very common herbaceous plant, found in fields. Problem is, it naturally contains very high levels of alkaloids derived from atropine. According to ANSES, "all parts of the plant are toxic and can cause serious or even fatal health effects".

These alkaloids are indeed toxic and have effects on the nervous system. They can thus cause an anticholinergic or atropinic syndrome, which manifests itself first by peripheral disorders (dilation of the pupil, tachycardia, vasodilation…) then central disorders (agitation, confusion, powerful hallucinations…) .

The batches in question have already been subject to withdrawal-recall measures by the manufacturer. Furthermore, "the buyers concerned were contacted individually as soon as possible (via loyalty cards…) ", reassures l& rsquo;ARS, "nevertheless, people who may have purchased this product are invited to check the lot number."

So if you have a product with this lot number, you must obviously not consume it and return it to the point of sale for destruction.

How to recognize datura, which can also be found in our vegetable gardens ? " The jimson datura has large leaves (3-24 cm) with an oval outline, unevenly toothed edges and sharp tips" and "large white flowers (6-11 cm) funnel-shaped". The plant has an erect habit and can reach more than 1 meter in height.