It’s lunchtime at Parker’s house in Richmond, BC. But before eight-year-old Lucas can be fed, his father checks the boy’s blood sugar levels. Nathan Parker comes up with the dosages for his son’s medications and fills a plastic bag with liquid nutrition that is delivered through a feeding tube into Lucas’ stomach.
“One day,” Parker tells his son, “let’s move on to steak and potatoes, okay? I think you must be tired of this food by now? I know I would be.”
But that day doesn’t come. Lucas is considered one of the most seriously injured survivors of a foodborne illness.
CBC Marketplace did a story about Lucas in 2021while investigating a rash of E. coli outbreaks involving romaine lettuce in the US
Earlier this year, Parker wanted to show that piece to a friend, but he discovered something else: Lucas’ life story was being used to sell a machine called the Amazing Water Multifunctional Food Sanitizer for $256.
- For the full research, watch “Profiting off Pain” tonight at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. in NL) on CBC TV and CBC Gem.
Parker said he knew nothing about it.
“I believe they are exploiting my son – and that’s the part that hurts the most.”
LOOK | Nathan Parker responds to Amazing Water’s use of his son’s story:
Lucas Parker lost his ability to walk or talk after an E. coli infection
As a toddler, Lucas Parker ate salad contaminated with E. coli. He lost the ability to walk and talk and it affected his eyesight. Now eight years old, the boy’s story is being used without his family’s permission to market a food disinfectant.
The video Parker discovered uses animation for retelling From marketplace original story about how Lucas shared a contaminated romaine salad with his father during a family road trip to Disneyland in 2018.
Lucas almost died when his kidneys failed due to an E. coli infection. And the disease’s complications caused brain damage that left the then-toddler unable to walk or talk, and affected his vision so that he could barely see.
The Amazing Water video suggests that the food sanitizer could prevent this from happening to another child by “removing harmful toxins, bacteria, viruses and added hormones from food in minutes.”
Parker is shocked.
“My son is so unique. The situation that happened to him was inevitable.”
Putting it to the test
So, Marketplace started an investigation. It bought one of Amazing Water’s food sanitizers online and sent it for testing to the University of Guelph’s food science laboratory, where researchers inoculate fruits and vegetables with a harmless form of E. coli.
The goal was to see if the disinfectant could remove bacteria better than regular tap water. Bacterial cultures would show how much E. coli was left.
Microbiologist Keith Warriner tells Marketplace host Asha Tomlinson that he is concerned about the ozone levels released by food sanitizer Amazing Water in a test. (CBC)
According to Amazing Water, the food disinfectant uses something called “active oxygen” to remove pesticides, bacteria (including E. coli and salmonella), hormones and viruses, all within a 10-minute cycle.
Microbiologist Keith Warriner told it Marketplace he doubted whether the food sanitizer would meet his requirements.
“Active oxygen is just another name people give for a lot of different things, including ozone,” says Warriner, a university food science professor who specializes in helping companies bring clean food to market.
“So we know ozone from the ozone layer, how it protects us from the sun. But it is also a very powerful antimicrobial and oxidant,” he said. “(It) breaks things and can kill things.”
But he said it would be difficult for a home machine to safely produce the amount of ozone needed to purify food.
“A lot of these domestic units are claiming that,” he said. “But (they) produce a very small amount (of ozone) because they want to avoid what we call outgassing.”
The reason for this is that ozone is a toxic gas that can reduce lung function and cause premature death in people at high risk. In other cases, it can cause chest discomfort, coughing, and irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. Health Canada recommends against having ozone-generating devices in your home.
As Warriner tested the machine Marketplacean odor was detected prompting him to use an ozone alarm, which is common in many laboratories.
“Wow,” he said, pointing to the alarm’s maximum digital meter. “Look at that. It’s off the scale; it’s actually giving off gas… This tells you this is unsafe to use.”
An ozone alarm indicates that a lot of gas is escaping from the food sanitizer. (CBC)
Before finishing the test, Warriner double-checked the readings with a monitor that measures ozone in parts per billion (PPB). He said 300 PPB is considered dangerous; his monitor recorded a reading of 41,000 PPB.
“So basically this machine is dangerous,” he said. ‘We are now breathing ozone. This is a dangerous machine.’
Not only was it dangerous, he said, but the bacterial cultures showed that the Amazing Water Multifunctional Food Sanitizer was no better at lowering E.coli levels than tap water.
The company uses Lucas’ story
In the course of his research Marketplace discovered that the main person selling the food sanitizer is a man named Methsiri (Lal) Palliyaguru.
Records show that Amazing Water was founded in May 2019. Palliyaguru is listed as the company’s manager with the Better Business Bureau. He also heavily promoted the food sanitizer on his personal Facebook page, and several videos on Vimeo extol the machine’s virtues.
A man with the same name and other similarities has been indicted in the United States on federal fraud charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced in September 2015 that two foreign nationals were wanted in connection with an alleged $10 million telemarketing scam that targeted elderly investors in the US.
One of the foreigners was called Methsiri (Lal) Palliyaguru.
The press release states that the suspects have each been charged with eight counts of mail fraud, with each charge carrying a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. Both defendants were considered fugitives and Palliyaguru was believed to be in Canada.
The Palliyaguru accused of fraud in the US also has the same date of birth as the man behind the food sanitizer, and both are said to live in Canada.
Marketplace repeatedly attempted to contact Palliyaguru for his perspective and response to the investigation, including visiting Amazing Water’s offices in Port Coquitlam, BC, and Palliyaguru’s home.
He eventually agreed to a brief telephone conversation in which he said he had nothing to do with the fraud case in the United States. Palliyaguru told it Marketplace that he no longer sells the Amazing Water Multifunctional Food Sanitizer and that he has removed Lucas’ video from the company’s website.
Warriner’s testing found that this Amazing Water Multifunctional Food Sanitizer was no better at reducing E. coli levels than tap water. (CBC)
But when this story is published, the boy’s video is still there.
When Parker heard that Marketplace Palliyaguru, he became even angrier.
“Hell has a special place for people like him,” he said.
And when he learned that tests showed the machine selling his son’s story could harm other families through dangerous ozone emissions, he said he was heartbroken.
“How sad to have my son’s name attached to it.”
Parker said he plans to take Lucas’ name back with a new foundation in his honor.
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