Diaper Danger

All 30 of the newborn infants in a nursery at Uruguay's Pereyra Rossell Maternity Hospital in Montevideo turned blue last week. Doctors had no trouble diagnosing the mass illness as a hemoglobin disorder. But finding the cause was another matter. Meanwhile, as 15 of the babies seemed near death, every oxygen tent in the city was ordered to the hospital, and each infant's blood was completely changed by transfusion.

At week's end, all were pronounced out of danger, and pediatricians found the cause of the outbreak. It carried a sharp warning for hospital nurseries everywhere. New diapers had been stamped with the hospital's name, and aniline oil from the ink had seeped through the skin into the babies' blood. A simple preventive: boil the diapers thoroughly, to get rid of excess oil, before using.

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