Walmart Parent’s Choice Baby Foods Contain Heavy Metals Class Action

Walmart makes a company brand of baby, infant, and toddler food called Parent’s Choice. Parents and caregivers expect baby food companies to take extra care to make sure that food for babies and small children is healthy and safe. However, the complaint for this class action alleges that Parent’s Choice baby foods have been found by a House subcommittee to contain heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

The class for this action is all retailer purchasers of Walmart’s baby food sold in the US between the applicable statute of limitations and February 4, 2021.

Toxic heavy metals are known to be dangerous. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have both declared that the heavy metals at issue in this complaint are dangerous to human health, the complaint claims, particularly where babies and small children are concerned. Babies’ brains are particularly liable to injury from toxic chemicals.

The complaint summarizes the dangers this way: “Even low levels of exposure to toxic heavy metals can cause serious and often irreversible damage to brain development leading to permanent decreases in IQ, diminished future economic productivity, and increased risk of future criminal and antisocial behavior. As a result, there is no established safe level of toxic heavy metals for babies. Any amount is too much.”

How does the complaint claim to know about the heavy metals in the Parent’s Choice foods? It refers to a report released on February 4, 2021 from the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, Committee on Oversight and Reform of the US House of Representatives. According to the complaint, the report “detailed an investigation that revealed that [Walmart’s] baby foods were contaminated with significant levels of toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.”

According to the complaint, “Although Walmart has recently claimed that it is only a retailer of baby foods and not a manufacturer, on its website it markets itself as a trustworthy manufacturer.” The complaint quotes material from the website, claiming that its foods meet FDA standards and “holds itself out as an expert.”

When the Subcommittee was engaged in its investigations of baby foods, Walmart was one of the companies that refused to take part. “Still,” the complaint alleges, “independent testing of Walmart products confirmed that its baby fooda contain concerning level of toxic heavy metals.”

An earlier report on baby foods also showed concerning results for Walmart’s products, the complaint alleges: “In 2019, Healthy Babies Bright Futures released testing results that showed Walmart’s baby foods contained arsenic at levels as high as 108 ppb, lead [] levels as high as 26.9 ppb, cadmium at levels as high as 26.1 ppb, and mercury at levels as high as 2.05 ppb.”

The complaint alleges that Walmart knowingly manufactured and sold baby foods with heavy metals in them but did not warn consumers of this fact.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, Food Contamination, Heavy Metals