Hain Earth’s Best Organic Baby Foods Contain Heavy Metals IL, ID Class Action

Hain Celestial Group, Inc. makes a variety of baby foods, under the Earth’s Best Organic brand. Consumers buy organic products to avoid contamination with toxic substances, like pesticides, but the complaint for this class action alleges that Hain’s baby food is contaminated with heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

The class for this action is all those who live in Illinois and Idaho who bought the products during the applicable statutes of limitations.

A rash of complaints have been filed recently on baby food contaminated with heavy metals. The allegations appear to have originated in a report from a US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, Committee on Oversight and Reform. The Subcommittee investigated reports on heavy metals in baby food, when, as it acknowledges, “[e]ven low levels of exposure can cause serious and often irreversible damage to brain development.”

According to the report, “Internal company standards permit dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals, and … the manufacturers have often sold foods that exceeded these levels.”

The complaint quotes the report as saying that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have determined that arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury are “dangerous to human health, particularly to babies and children, who are most vulnerable to their neurotoxic effects.”

The complaint refers to the findings of another report as well, saying, “Even in trace amounts, these heavy metals can alter the developing brain and erode a child’s IQ and increase risk of future criminal and antisocial behavior in children.”

The complaint reviews the various substances, the recommended limits, and their actual levels in the baby foods in question. For example, for inorganic arsenic, the complaint sets forth these allegations:

• The FDA has set a limit of 100 ppb for inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal.
• Hain permits a higher level, that is, 115 ppb.
• Hain “sold baby food products with as much as 129 ppb inorganic arsenic[,]” according to the complaint.
• The complaint claims, “In all baby food products tested by [Hain], inorganic arsenic levels were higher than estimated based on individual ingredient testing.”
• “In all baby food products tested by [Hain],” the complaint alleges, “inorganic arsenic levels were higher than estimated based on individual ingredient testing.”
• “Inorganic arsenic was between 28% and 93% more in the finished products than it was in the ingredients[,]” the complaint alleges.
• Finally, the complaint claims, “Half of [Hain’s] brown rice baby foods had over 100 ppb inorganic arsenic; and the average brown rice baby food had 97.62 ppb inorganic arsenic.”

The ingredient panel gives no clue as to this. For the Organic Banana Raspberry Brown Rice, it lists the ingredients as “Organic Bananas, Water, Organic Raspberries, Organic Whole Grain Brown Rice, and Citric Acid.”

The counts include breaches of warranties, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, and unjust enrichment.

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