Acid

Adding folic acid to flours, pastas and rice has reduced the rate of spina bifida and anencephaly in the United States, sparing 1,000 babies each year from these devastating birth defects. But a recent study suggests those health gains may have come at a cost: an extra 15,000 cases of colon cancer annually. The report, from Tufts University, is the latest to raise a cautionary note about a public-health policy that has been largely viewed as a success. "Have we done more harm than benefit?"

A Baltimore County judge sent back to juvenile court yesterday the case against two teenagers charged in the chemical burning of a toddler at a Middle River playground. Hours later, another judge ordered the boys -- who had been free on bail after being charged as adults -- to wear an electronic monitor and be placed on home detention, a prosecutor said. The boys, ages 16 and 17, had been charged as adults with first-degree assault in the burning of 3-year-old Payton Potochney of Essex.

The culprit might be, as one criminologist says, a sociopath seeking to inject fear into a setting for lighthearted family fun. Or maybe a sadist who set a trap and lay in wait to watch a victim fall into it. More likely, Baltimore County's police chief says, the person who doused a playground slide with acid last weekend at a Middle River elementary school was a youngster from the neighborhood. "For some inexplicable reason, we've got somebody from this neighborhood, I believe no doubt young, who got some sort of emotional high," Chief Terrence B. Sheridan said yesterday.

Payton Potachney knew exactly where the slides were behind Victory Villa Elementary School. Late Saturday morning, as he crossed a wooden footbridge onto school grounds, the Middle River boy who turns 3 next month left his grandmother's grasp and raced toward the cupola-covered jungle gym, family members said. Within minutes, the blond-haired toddler was gliding down his beloved slide. Then he screamed. The plastic slide had been coated with an industrial-strength drain cleaner containing sulfuric acid so caustic that it quickly burned through his clothes and began to peel away his skin.

A 2 1/2 -year-old boy was severely burned yesterday afternoon at the playground of a Middle River elementary school after going down a slide doused in sulfuric acid and landing in a pool of the corrosive liquid. Authorities said they believe vandals stole the industrial-strength drain cleaner from a storage closet at Victory Villa Elementary School and poured it over pieces of playground equipment. The boy, who lives less than a quarter-mile from the school, was in fair condition last night at Johns Hopkins Hospital's pediatric burn unit.

DENISON, Iowa --With some restaurants and even the city of New York swearing off trans fat, Monsanto Co. recently sent representatives here with a mission: persuade farmers to grow a special kind of soybean that produces a valuable alternative to trans-fat-laden frying oil. The company and its local soybean processor offered the farmers doughnuts and a simple pitch: an extra 35 cents a bushel to grow the special soybeans instead of regular ones, and...

I've been struggling with body odor for years. I've used antibacterial soap, but it only helps for a short while. It's really affecting the way others look at me in my workplace, commute and outings. Once I thought this odor was because of a serious nail fungus. After taking oral Lamisil, I no longer have the fungus, but I still smell bad. Please help! Only a physician can diagnose what's causing your problem. Some people have a metabolic disorder called trimethylaminuria. A defective enzyme allows a chemical to build up in the body that smells like dead fish.

It's time to call a moratorium on the dysfunctional-family flick. Narcissistic, adulterous or conflicted moms, distant dads, drug-riddled youngsters - don't we get enough of them on "cutting-edge" TV series these days? Ryan Murphy, who created one of those series, Nip/Tuck, seized on Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs' acclaimed memoir of a loony adolescence, for the comedy-drama opening today. But all he does with this prized dysfunctional-family property is turn it into a crazed Carter-era comic strip: For Better or for Worse on acid.

An acid used to clean coal spilled into the Baltimore harbor yesterday and was traced to a coal company at the southern edge of the Canton Industrial Area. City fire officials said the spill is expected to dissipate over the next day or so without any threat to the environment or people. The spill was first reported about 12:30 p.m. from Consolidated Coal Co. in the 3800 block of Newgate Ave. It went into the harbor where the Patapsco River merges with the Northwest Harbor. The clay-colored substance covered 2 to 3 acres of water, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman.

As she stared down into a wide-mouthed plastic jar aboard the R/V Discoverer, Victoria Fabry peered into the future. The marine snails she was studying - graceful creatures with winglike feet that help them glide through the water - had started to dissolve. Fabry was taken aback. The button-sized snails, called pteropods, are hardy animals that swirl in dense patches in some of the world's coldest seas. In 20 years of studying the snails, a vital ingredient in the polar food supply, the marine biologist from California State University, San Marcos had never seen such damage.