Beech-Nut Baby Foods Contain Heavy Metals Class Action

Beech-Nut Nutrition Company makes baby foods that it markets as being “100% Natural” and good for babies. However, the complaint for this class action allege that Beech-Nut baby foods actually contain significant amounts of heavy metals that may harm infants and children. The allegations are based on two reports, including one from a Congressional subcommittee.

The class for this action is all citizens of the US who, within the relevant statute of limitations, bought Beech-Nut baby food, for personal use and not for resale. A list of the baby foods at issue can be found on page 5 of the complaint (linked below).

In its marketing, Beech-Nut states that it makes natural and organic baby foods “that are free from artificial preservatives, colors and flavors.” It claims to conduct “over 20 rigorous tests on our purees, testing for up to 255 pesticides and heavy metals (like lead, cadmium, arsenic and other nasty stuff). Just like you would, we send the produce back if it’s not good enough.”

“Yet,” the complaint says, “nowhere in the labeling, advertising, statements, warranties, and/or packaging does [Beech-Nut] disclose that the Baby Food include and/or have a high risk of containing heavy metals or other ingredients that do not conform to the labels, packaging, advertising, and statements.”

It claims that in fact the baby foods contain “significant levels of arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, and/or perchlorate—all known to pose health risks to humans and particularly to infants.”

The complaint points to a recent report from a Congressional Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. This one asked for documents from the largest baby food makers in the US and found that many baby foods contain toxic heavy metals, including significant amounts of arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) say that these heavy metals are “dangerous to human health, particularly to babies and children, who are most vulnerable to their neurotoxic effects.”

The complaint quotes the report in saying, “The four heavy metals ‘can harm a baby’s developing brain and nervous system’ and cause negative impacts such as ‘the permanent loss of intellectual capacity and behavioral problems like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” It alleges, “Even in trace amounts found in food, these heavy metals can alter the developing brain and erode a child’s IQ.”

The complaint details levels permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and FDA for these substances and finds higher levels permitted by Beech-Nut. For example, the FDA limit for arsenic in bottled water is 10 ppb, and the FDA is considering putting a limit on arsenic in rice cereals for infants at 100 ppb. However, the complaint quotes the Congressional report as saying that Beech-Nut set a limit of 3,000 ppb inorganic arsenic for some ingredients, used ingredients “with as much as 913.4 ppb arsenic” and “routinely used ingredients that exceeded 300 ppb total arsenic[.]”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Contaminated with Harmful Substances, Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, Food Contamination, Heavy Metals