Provincial health officials and hospital workers tampered with blood tests in a case of lead poisoning that sickened more than 250 kindergartners in western China, Chinese authorities said, in a rare acknowledgment of a high-level hush-up of a public scandal.

中国官方表示，在西部一起导致250多名幼儿园儿童铅中毒的事件中，省级卫生官员和医院工作人员在血液检测中做了手脚。这是对高层掩盖公共丑闻行为的罕见承认。

The authorities in Gansu Province also accused education officials in the city of Tianshui of turning a blind eye to the fact that the kindergarten in question was unlicensed and accepted unauthorized gifts from an investor in the school. Food safety inspections at the school were perfunctory, according to an official report released on Sunday by a special investigative team convened by the Gansu provincial Communist Party committee and government.

甘肃省有关部门还指控天水市教育官员对涉事幼儿园无证办学视而不见，并违规收受学校投资者馈赠。甘肃省党委和政府成立的特别调查组周日发布的官方报告称，当地市场监管局对幼儿园的食品安全检查流于形式。

Even before the release of the report, the lead poisoning scandal had dominated public discussion for weeks in China, where food safety has been a long-running concern.

早在报告发布前，这起铅中毒丑闻已在中国引发数周公众热议——食品安全是中国社会一个长期令人担忧的问题。

The poisoning stemmed from powdered pigments that the school staff had used as food coloring, the report said. Some of the pigments, which were marked as inedible on its packaging, consisted of more than 20 percent lead; lead levels in the food the children were given exceeded the national food safety standard by 2,000 times.

报告称，中毒源于学校工作人员使用的粉末状颜料，它们被用作食品着色剂。部分颜料的包装上标明了不可食用，其铅含量超过20%；孩子们食用的食物中，铅含量超出国家食品安全标准2000倍。

But the investigation results further fueled public outrage at the official misconduct on multiple levels. Some parents at the preschool had already said they suspected a cover-up, even taking their children to other provinces for testing. Now their fears were confirmed.

但调查结果进一步加剧了公众对官方多层面渎职行为的愤怒。这所幼儿园的一些家长此前就表示，怀疑有人试图掩盖真相，甚至带孩子到其他省份检测。如今，他们的担忧得到了证实。

One child was found to have elevated levels of lead six times over the course of half a year, starting in November 2024, without the hospital, Tianshui No. 2 People’s Hospital, issuing any alert, the report said. The hospital also modified the records of two more children who showed elevated lead levels, reporting a blood lead level nearly seven times lower than the actual result for one of them.

报告称，自2024年11月起，有一名儿童在半年内被检测出六次血铅含量超标，但天水市第二人民医院从未发出任何警报。该医院还篡改了另外两名血铅含量超标的儿童的记录，其中一名儿童的血铅检测结果被改为实际数值的近七分之一。

“What should have been followed up on was not, and, in fact, test results were directly modified,” the report said, adding that the hospital’s management was “chaotic.” It also said the hospital had previously modified other unspecified blood lead test results, which were under investigation.

“该复检的未复检且直接修改检验结果，”报告称，并指出医院管理“混乱”。报告还提到，该医院此前还违规修改过其他未具体说明的血铅检测结果，相关情况正在调查中。

After many children began showing symptoms, the Gansu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention this month was then tasked with conducting its own testing of 267 students and staff at the school, Peixin Kindergarten. But officials there did not take the work seriously, the report said. They shook the blood samples or let them sit for nearly three hours, allowing the samples to separate, “resulting in a huge difference between the test results and the actual values,” according to the report.

在多名儿童出现症状后，甘肃省疾控中心本月受命对培心幼儿园的267名师生进行检测。但报告称，该中心工作人员对此工作敷衍了事，他们在将血液样本摇匀后将其静置近三小时导致分层，“导致检测结果与实际值出现巨大差异”。

Afterward, the report continued, staff there “evaded responsibility and obstructed the investigation in various ways,” though it did not give details.

报告还称，此后该中心工作人员“通过多种方式逃避责任、阻碍调查”，但未透露具体细节。

The Chinese authorities tightly control the flow of information after any public disasters or scandals. In recent food safety scandals, such as when cooking oil was transported in dirty fuel tankers, or a restaurant sprayed carcinogenic paint on barbecue skewers, the authorities have promised to hold individual companies or low-level officials accountable. But acknowledgment of active higher-level cover-ups is relatively rare.

中国官方在发生公共灾难或丑闻后，会严格控制信息传播。在近期的食品安全丑闻中——例如使用肮脏的油罐车运输食用油，或餐馆在烤串上喷洒致癌涂料——官方都承诺追究相关企业或基层官员的责任。但承认高层主动掩盖丑闻的情况相对罕见。

In the Tianshui case, parents who took their children for testing in neighboring Shaanxi Province said the results of tests administered there showed significantly higher lead levels than those taken in Gansu.

在天水这起事件中，带孩子到邻省陕西检测的家长表示，陕西的检测结果显示，血铅含量远高于甘肃的检测结果。

Six people have been arrested, including the preschool’s principal, the school cooks and the investor who had given unauthorized gifts. Another 17 people are under criminal investigation, including leaders of the hospital, the provincial health commission and the city’s education bureau.

目前已有六人被捕，包括该幼儿园园长、厨师和赠送违规礼品的投资者。另有17人正在接受刑事调查，其中包括涉事医院领导、省卫健委和市教育局的负责人。

The principal and the investor had bought the pigment to make the school’s food look more appealing in photos, in an effort to attract more students, according to the report. The school cooks colored buns to look like bright yellow corn on the cob, and adorned cakes with layers of teal and pink.

报告称，园长和投资者购买色素是为了让学校的食物在照片中看起来更诱人，以吸引更多生源。学校厨师用色素将包子染成鲜黄色，看起来像玉米棒，还在蛋糕上装饰青绿色和粉色的涂层。

School staff, including the principal, ate the contaminated food, too. Out of 251 children and 34 teaching staff currently at the school, 247 children and 28 staff members had elevated blood lead levels in recent testing. So did five students who graduated from the kindergarten last year.

包括园长在内的学校工作人员也食用了这些受污染的食物。目前该校有251名儿童和34名教职工，近期检测显示247名儿童和28名教职工血铅含量超标。去年从该幼儿园毕业的五名学生也存在血铅超标情况。

As of Sunday, 234 children had been hospitalized and discharged, and one was still in the hospital, the report said.

报告称，截至周日，已有234名儿童住院治疗后出院，一名儿童仍在住院。

After the report was published, commenters online said that the official cover-ups would undermine trust in the government. While some praised the level of detail in the latest official report, others questioned whether it, too, might have some gaps.

报告发布后，有网友评论，官方的掩盖行为会损害政府的公信力。尽管一些人赞扬这份最新官方报告内容详细，但也有人质疑报告可能仍然存在遗漏。

Some videos shared on social media on Sunday appeared to show dozens of people gathered near the kindergarten to demand government accountability, while surrounded by a large police presence. Those videos were quickly deleted from Chinese platforms, though they continued to circulate on overseas sites.

周日，社交媒体上流传的一些视频显示，数十人聚集在涉事幼儿园附近要求政府承担责任，周围有大量警察。这些视频很快在中国的网络平台上被删除，但仍在海外网站流传。

The Times verified that four different videos were shot in front of Peixin Kindergarten but could not verify their dates. Reached by phone on Monday, the owner of a restaurant near the kindergarten said he had seen many people gathered around 9 or 10 p.m. the night before.

《纽约时报》核实了四段在培心幼儿园前拍摄的不同视频，但无法核实拍摄日期。周一，幼儿园附近一家餐馆的老板在电话中表示，前一晚9点到10点左右，他看到有很多人聚集在那里。