| Summary: |
In the spring of 2000, a two-year-old girl named Sunday Abek was treated
at a New Hampshire hospital emergency room for a low-grade fever and
vomiting. Because her throat culture was positive for strep, the doctors
sent her home with a prescription for an antibiotic. Her condition worsened,
and three weeks later Sunday was admitted to the hospital, where
she fell into a coma. Two days later, she died. The cause of her death was
lead poisoning.
Originally from Sudan, Sunday’s family had recently moved to the
United States from an Egyptian refugee camp, where she had lived for
most of her brief life. She was poisoned, however, by lead in her family’s
home in an apartment building in Manchester, New Hampshire. Following
her death, testing at the apartment revealed that the porch, where
Sunday played, was covered with peeling, fl aking paint
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