Texas Sues Gerber and Nestle Over Heavy Metals in Baby Food
Attorney General Ken Paxton says Gerber's own tests found arsenic, lead and cadmium in ingredients while it told parents its food was safe and rigorously tested.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Oct. 14 that he has sued Gerber Products Company and Nestle USA, accusing them of misleading Texas parents about toxic heavy metals in Gerber baby food, according to his office. The petition, posted by his office, was filed Oct. 9 in Collin County district court.
The lawsuit is brought under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. It claims Gerber told parents its food was safe, pure, rigorously tested and recommended by pediatricians while its own test results showed dangerous levels of metals. These are allegations; the companies have not had their day in court.
What the state alleges
According to the attorney general's office:
From 2017 through 2019, Gerber used 67 batches of rice flour with more than nine times the arsenic the federal government allows in bottled water.
Its carrots had up to 17 times the bottled-water limit for cadmium, and its sweet potatoes had nearly 10 times the limit for lead.
Gerber rarely tested for mercury.
In 2021, Alaska's state laboratory found two samples of Gerber rice cereal over the federal arsenic limit. Beech-Nut recalled its own infant rice cereal; Gerber never issued a recall over heavy metals, the state says.
The state notes Gerber now posts test results behind a QR code on its labels.
"When a company makes promises about what parents feed their babies, I will hold it accountable to ensure those promises are kept," Paxton said.
The suit follows an earlier settlement between Paxton's office and baby food maker Plum.
Gerber's response
Gerber disputed the allegations in a statement to KVUE. "Nothing is more important than the safety and quality of our baby food, and it remains undisputed that Gerber products meet FDA limits for heavy metals," the company said. It said every product is tested for more than 500 toxins and contaminants, that it supports the FDA's Closer to Zero plan to reduce children's exposure, and that while heavy metals "cannot be completely eliminated from the food supply," it works to reduce them through "careful ingredient sourcing, supplier requirements, testing and quality controls." Nestle's response was not included in the reports Dock Line reviewed.
What parents can do
Do not panic, and do not stop feeding your baby. Talk with your pediatrician about a varied diet, especially if rice-based foods are a staple. Check the testing information companies now publish, and read labels with a careful eye.
Parents trust the jar on the shelf because they have to. Few things are more basic than feeding a child, and companies that sell food for babies owe families the plain truth about what is inside. Whatever the courts decide, that standard is worth holding. For more on children's health, see our story on surgeons repairing a baby's spine before birth.
Hero photo: U.S. Navy via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Generic image; the products shown are not the subject of the lawsuit.
