PALM BEACH POST

October 1, 2005

Baby Carlitos to get free care at Shriners Hospital

By Christine Evans

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Carlos Candlario Herrera, the little boy born in December with no arms and legs, will receive free orthopedic and surgical care at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Tampa until he turns 18, his attorney said this week.

The agreement with the well-known children’s hospital is a major step for th baby’s parents, Francisca Herrera and Abraham Candelario, who were working in tomato fields for Ag-Mart Produce in the early part of Herrera’s pregnancy.

The state is investigating whether the baby’s significant deformities – no arms or legs, just stumps and related problems – might be connected to pesticides used in Florida fields.

While the question remains a medical mystery – an extensive state report is expected in roughly a month – the family’s attorney, Andrew Yaffa, said the Shriners’ offer gives the baby, called Carlitos, a more secure future.

“It was one of the wonderful things to come of …a ton of offers,” Yaffa said.  The baby, now 9 months old, just underwent two days of examinations at Shriners.

“It seems there are some things they can do to help him,” the attorney said.  “There is hope.”

The hospital, which could not be reached for comment Friday, will provide any artificial limbs the boy needs, as well as extensive surgeries, Yaffa said.

Yaffa, who is preparing a possible lawsuit on Carlitos’ behalf, said extensive testing showed that the child has no chromosomal irregularities and that the placenta was found to be normal.

Interviews with family members did not indicate any history of birth defects, he said, as assertion backed up by independent reporting in the U.S. and Mexico by The Palm Beach Post.

Yaffa said a medical expert consulting with his firm believes the deformity is a resolute of “an in-utero problem in the form of a toxin.”  He did not elaborate.

Carlitos, born Dec. 17 was the first of three highly publicized birth-defect cases in Southwest Florida this past season.  He lives with his parents in a model farmworker community in south Miami-Dade County.  In addition to his truncated limbs, he has curvature of the spine and is expected to be fitted soon for braces.

Abraham Candelario said his son is doing well under the circumstances.  “More or less,” he said Friday.  “We will see how it goes.”

A second baby, born Feb. 4 to Ag-Mart workers, has a malformed jaw and related eating and breathing problems.

Relatives in Mexico said this week that the parents, Sostenes Salazar and Victor Navarette, moved this summer to North Carolina and that the baby, Jesus, is doing OK.  The family hopes to return to Mexico in May.

On Feb. 6, a third baby was born to Ag-Mart fieldworkers.

Maria Meza and her husband, Cristobal Rueda, had a little girl, Violeta, who died three days later of multiple deformities.  At first, she had no clear gender and was originally named Jorge.

Her mother has since returned to Mexico, and her father continues to labor for another company in Florida fields.

“We are doing OK,” Cristobal Rueda said Thursday.

Violeta’s case, like the other two, is under review by investigators who want to know whether pesticides are putting farmworkers at risk, particularly during pregnancy.

Two of the women, Meza and Salazar, have other healthy children.  For Francisca Herrera, Carlitos is her first child.