Crisis over suspected Iran schoolgirl poisonings escalates

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A crisis over suspected poisonings targeting Iranian schoolgirls escalated Sunday as authorities acknowledged over 50 schools were struck in a wave of possible cases. The poisonings have spread further fear among parents as Iran has faced months of unrest.

It remains unclear who or what is responsible since the alleged poisonings began in November in the Shiite holy city of Qom. Reports now suggest schools across 21 of Iran’s 30 provinces have seen suspected cases, with girls’ schools the site of nearly all the incidents.

The attacks have raised fears that other girls could be poisoned, apparently just for going to school. Education for girls has never been challenged in the more than 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has been calling on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to allow girls and women return to school and universities.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Saturday said, without elaborating, that investigators recovered “suspicious samples” in the course of their investigations into the incidents, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. He called for calm among the public, while also accusing the “enemy’s media terrorism” of inciting more panic over the alleged poisonings.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-schoolgirl-poisonings-investigation-2168f9ad672cd361f27654df205cbea3

Some religious nut case who thinks girls shouldn't be educated?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. First place to look for something this widespread is a vendor or commissary

that supplies a lot of schools.

Could be unintended contamination, or a person acting out of archaic religious beliefs, or just a plain sociopath. Personally suspect the former is the most statistically likely.

The only way I *think* you'd see this in this many different schools is if it's coming from a central location that supplies them all

[ret5hd]

2. I dunno about your "...suspect the former" assertion:

I would really doubt that schools for girls would be supplied by completely separate vendors.

Just my $0.000002 (way way less than two cents)

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. I don't know how things 'work' in Iran, but seems conceivable their could be rules

about what kind of meals are served at girls schools, and it's different from those in the boys schools. For example in the US I'd guess that all-girls schools may serve a lot more salads in the cafeteria that all-boys schools would, in Iran maybe they have actual laws where only girls are to be served ... such and such?

I don't know if they sell sanitary products in the girl's bathrooms in Iran like they did at my HS, but that's also a possible avenue that could cause the disparity.

If this one or two schools I wouldn't say this seems most likely, but 50 schools, across 21 provinces? That is awfully widespread.

Another very possible avenue is that it's an individual driver from a commissary or vendor who's doping the food only when s/he makes drop-offs at the girl's schools, like while it's in the truck.

[Chainfire]

4. Well, Ill be damned. Somebody hates education worse than the Republicans.

What is wrong with a people that want to intentionally sideline half of the nation's brainpower?

Fucking religious fanatics are all alike regardless of what god they are worshipping.