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US Judge rules that several companies are liable for tainted infant food.

A U.S. Judge said that several companies, including Walmart, Beech-Nut, and Gerber, must face a national lawsuit alleging that toxic heavy metals were contaminated in their baby food and caused brain and neurodevelopmental damages to the children who ate them.

In a ruling on Wednesday, U.S. district judge Jacqueline Scott Corley stated that parents could try to prove defective manufacturing, negligence, and failure to warn their children about over 600 baby food products, caused them to suffer from autism spectrum disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders.

Parents claimed that some defendants did not adhere to their internal limits on how much mercury, arsenic and cadmium in baby food is safe. Others never addressed the matter.

Corley stated that this could make it plausible for parents to claim some baby food is unsafe if safety standards are not met. Judge Corley, based in San Francisco, said that parents did not have to prove toxicity at a certain threshold.

Gerber, owned by Switzerland's Hero Group and Beech-Nut, is owned Nestle. Walmart sells its baby food under the name of its own brand.

The case also includes Earth's Best Organics by Hain Celestial, Danone's Happy Baby & Happy Tot, Sun-Maid Growers of California's Plum Organics, and Neptune Wellness Solutions' Sprout Organic.

On Thursday, lawyers for the defendant companies didn't immediately respond to comments.

Companies have stated that their baby food products are safe. The companies also claimed that heavy metals occur naturally in the environment and that parents "cannot just allege that detectable amounts of heavy metals makes baby food defective."

R. Brent Wisner is an attorney for the plaintiffs. He expressed his satisfaction with the ruling.

Wisner wrote in an email that "selling baby food with arsenic and lead is simply not okay." With the court's decision, Wisner was one step closer to holding companies accountable for decades of misfeasance.

Parents filed a lawsuit after a report in 2021 by a U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee for Economic and Consumer Policy said that "dangerous levels" of heavy metals could cause neurological injury.

Corley dismissed Campbell's as a defendant, since it sold Plum Organics in 2021 to Sun-Maid.

Amazon.com, Whole Foods and Danone Baby Food have all been sued by the federal government for their sale.

The case is In Re: Baby Food Products Liability Litigation. U.S. District Court Northern District of California No. 24-md-03101. Bill Berkrot, Bill Stempel and Jonathan Stempel (New York) are responsible for the editing.

(source: Reuters)