NEW YORK: A United States federal judge has ruled that several prominent companies—including Walmart, Beech-Nut, and Gerber—must face a nationwide lawsuit alleging that their baby food products were contaminated with toxic heavy metals, resulting in neurological and developmental damage to children.
According to a ruling issued on Wednesday by US District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco, the parents of affected children can proceed with legal claims that more than 600 baby food products caused autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The plaintiffs argue that the manufacturers were negligent, failed to warn consumers, and produced baby food that was defectively manufactured.
Judge Corley said in her decision that the plaintiffs’ claims were plausible, particularly in cases where companies either disregarded internal safety thresholds for heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury—or failed to implement any such standards at all.
“There is no ironclad rule requiring the plaintiffs to allege that toxicity crossed a particular threshold,” Corley said, adding that baby food could be considered unsafe if safety criteria were not followed.
Beech-Nut is owned by Nestlé, while Gerber is part of the Switzerland-based Hero Group. Walmart, the US retail giant, sold its baby food products under its own brand.
Other companies named in the litigation include Hain Celestial’s Earth’s Best Organics, Danone’s Happy Baby and Happy Tot, Sun-Maid Growers of California’s Plum Organics, and Neptune Wellness Solutions’ Sprout Organic.
The companies named in the suit did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters reported.
In earlier court filings, the firms have defended the safety of their baby food, contending that trace levels of heavy metals occur naturally in the environment.
“Detectable levels of heavy metals do not automatically render baby food defective,” they previously argued.
However, R. Brent Wisner, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, welcomed the court’s decision.
“Selling baby food with lead and arsenic is simply not OK, and with the court’s ruling, we are one step closer to holding these companies accountable for their decades of malfeasance,” he said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
The lawsuit follows a 2021 report by a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives on economic and consumer policy, which found “dangerous” levels of heavy metals in various commercially available baby food products.
The report warned that exposure to these substances could cause neurological harm to infants and toddlers.
Campbell Soup Company, which sold Plum Organics to Sun-Maid in 2021, was dismissed as a defendant in the case.
Separately, Amazon.com and its Whole Foods subsidiary have also been sued for retailing Hain and Danone’s baby food products.
The case, titled In re: Baby Food Products Liability Litigation, is being heard in the US District Court for the Northern District of California under case number 24-md-03101.
