Russian officials have found poisonous mercury in children’s sweets, Interfax news agency reported Wednesday. Confectionery containing mercury were found in Cherepovets in the Vologda region, a source at the Cherepovets civic defense and emergency situations department told the news agency. “We got the call from a worker of one of the factories, who, having broken one of the sweets, found little balls in it that looked like mercury,” the official told Interfax. “The Russian Oversight Committee for Sanitation and Epidemiology conducted tests and found that it was mercury,” he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to improve federal food inspection and other public safety standards that were notoriously bad during the Soviet era and got even worse during the chaotic first years following the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. © Copyright 2004 by United Press International

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