Moshe Miller, former owner
Photo: Tal Cohen
Remedia formula
Photo: Gabi Menashe
Remedia directors indicted for negligent homicide
Three babies died, dozens others were seriously hurt after eating company's baby food. Three years later, Central District Prosecution decides to indict firm's owner, two senior directors, and Health Ministry officials for their part in affair
Three years after three babies died and dozens were hurt as a result of being fed Remedia's infant formula, the Central District Prosecution decided to indict the firm's former owner, two other senior directors in the company, a senior Health Ministry official and several other Ministry employees.
Former owner Moshe Miller, CEO Gideon Landsberger and food technologist Frederic Black will be indicted for negligent homicide, an offense for which the maximum sentence is three years,
The three will also indicted for other various offenses.
Dr. Dorit Nitzan-Klosky, the former director-general of the National Food Service at the Health Ministry and four supervisors at the Ashdod and Haifa ports who were in charge of inspecting the imported formula, will also we indicted on charges of committing an act that could help spread a disease and for gross negligent.
The Remedia affair was revealed in November 2003, after sever morbidity had been diagnosed among dozens of infants in Israel. Three babies died and more than 20 sustained serious, and in some cases irreversible, medical damage. The cause for the symptoms was significant deficiency in B1 vitamin in Remedia's vegetative infant formula.
The indictment draft states that the essential vitamin had been taken out of the formula during production, but that the company failed to inform the public of the change, and that the information on the formula's label was false. As a result, the babies suffered severe damages to their nervous system and brain stem.
