LOS ANGELES (WRGB) — When parents walk down the grocery aisle, there is an expectation that the brightly colored jars and pouches on the shelves are the safest products in the store. But for thousands of families across the U.S., that trust has been replaced by fear.
According to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s (JPML) Dec. 2025 report, 345 cases are now pending in the Baby Food Products Liability Litigation, detailing allegations against baby food brands across the country, including one in the Capital Region, about the presence of toxic heavy metals in their products and the impacts on children.
“All of the cases that are in federal court have been sent to one judge to oversee and decide and adjudicate all of the issues that are coming across the cases, one being, ‘Can exposure to heavy metals through some of these baby foods cause brain injuries?’” attorney Pedram Esfandiary with Los Angeles-based law firm Wisner Baum said. “In state court, most of the cases are pending in California state court here in downtown Los Angeles. Myself and one of my colleagues are overseeing that litigation before one judge, and right now, we're working up a couple of cases towards trial. The judge in California state court has already resolved the issue of, ‘Can exposure to these heavy metals and baby food cause injury, as a general matter?’ So, we've prevailed on that in front of that judge.”
In a release, spokesperson Matias Wagner said there are widespread exposure risks because of the brands that stand accused – Gerber, Hain Celestial (manufacturer of Earth’s Best Organics), Nurture (manufacturer of Happy Family Organics), Plum Organics, Walmart’s Parent’s Choice, and Amsterdam-based Beech-Nut. CBS6 reached out to each of these brands two weeks ago. Walmart and Gerber were the only companies to respond.
"Walmart has a rigorous product safety and testing program for all of our products to ensure they meet FDA guidelines. We are confident in the safety of our products, and are disputing these allegations in litigation.”
Meanwhile, Gerber indicates on its website that it does test for heavy metals, calling its protocols “rigorous and comprehensive.”
A spokesperson shared the following statement:
"All Gerber baby food products are safe and nutritious and meet FDA limits for heavy metals, as well as our own strict standards.
"As the leading baby food maker in the U.S, we have robust standards for quality and safety. For years, we’ve taken proactive steps to minimize heavy metals in the ingredients we use. We have a dedicated project team made up of Nutrition Scientists, Agronomists, Child Development Specialists, Feeding Experts, Registered Dietitians, Food Scientists and Quality experts who are focused on these efforts. These efforts include employing advanced testing methods, working with our growers and suppliers to carefully select fields and source the best possible ingredients, using state-of-the art, stainless steel equipment in our food-making process, investing in regenerative agriculture practices to enhance the quality of the soil where our crops grow, and funding research to find new tools and solutions.
"We strongly support the FDA Closer to Zero Action Plan and we work collaboratively with the FDA and other stakeholders to further reduce the levels of heavy metals in foods eaten by infants and young children. Strong standards are good for babies, parents and our industry.
"At Gerber, we believe the best way to address the issue of heavy metals in foods is to be a part of the solution. We take a continuous improvement approach – which means our efforts will minimize levels further over time as technology evolves.
Plum Organics and Beech-Nut, which did not respond to CBS6, shared results of their own heavy metal testing on their respective websites.
In 2021, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) launched Closer to Zero, in an effort to reduce exposure to contaminants from foods, especially in those commonly eaten by babies and young children because “their smaller body sizes and metabolism make them more vulnerable to the harmful effects of these contaminants.” The challenge is that contaminants such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury may occur in the environment naturally, so it is virtually impossible to have zero amounts of these heavy metals, hence the name Closer to Zero.
“Levels in the air, water, and soil used to grow crops, process foods, and raise animals can vary depending on natural geographical differences and proximity to past or current pollution,” according to the FDA. “The amount of arsenic, lead, cadmium, or mercury in certain foods depends on the amount in the environment and how much the plant or animal ‘takes up’ from the environment.”
But Esfandiary argues that more can be done.
“We’re really saying that we should strive for zero, and we can do that by using alternatives that have significantly lower levels of heavy metals in them,” he told CBS6. “The whole ‘zero heavy metal’ thing is kind of misleading because the testing instruments that we have available right now are not even sensitive enough to say that there are zero amounts of heavy metals in this product. They can only detect heavy metals down to a certain level, like two parts per billion [ppb].”
In 2018, and then again in 2023, Consumer Reports released the findings of its own tests for heavy metals in baby food. It found improvement in the amount of heavy metals in foods from Earth’s Best Organic and Happy Baby Organic. However, it found no change in the sweet potato jar of baby food from Beech-Nut, recommending just half a serving per day. Consumer Reports also found that levels of heavy metal in Gerber’s Chicken Rice Dinner and Turkey Rice Dinner got worse from 2018 to 2023, recommending just a half serving per day in 2023, down from one full serving per day in 2018.
“What we can do, though, is ensure that the levels of heavy metals in those foods do stay below those limits of detection,” Esfandiary said. “There is a whole host of ways you can achieve that, and the manufacturers know this, and that's why we’ve actually started to see lower and lower levels of heavy metals in baby food, because they’ve started to use alternatives. So, for example, in lieu of rice, which is highly contaminated with arsenic, you can use other grains that don’t contain as much arsenic, like farro, like quinoa, like oats.”
Esfandiary also said certain manufacturing processes can cut down on the amount of heavy metals in baby food.
“The FDA has recently told manufacturers that peeling and washing certain root vegetables before use can reduce the amount of heavy metals in them,” he said. “There’s a whole host of strategies that manufacturers can utilize in ensuring lower metal levels. They just haven’t over time. That’s just not something they’ve done and, unfortunately, heavy metals have often been swept under the carpet, and our focus has more been on pesticides and mycotoxins and microplastics. I feel like heavy metals and the concerns about heavy metals is only now coming into the public discussion.”
To that end, Esfandiary said their firm represents thousands of families across the U.S., each with a potential case related to heavy metals and baby food.
“Many families, especially children who are diagnosed with neurodevelopmental conditions, they often undergo genetic testing,” he said. “[In] cases that we’ve worked up to trial recently, that genetic testing has been clean across the board. I mean, they’ve done all manner of genetic testing – three, four different types of tests – and none of them have returned a result that suggests that this was the product of a gene, and that’s the reason why we’re doing this. We’re doing this to help the family.”
In a release, Wagner said that the concern was not only for the accused companies but also the FDA, which reportedly removed timelines for arsenic, cadmium and mercury standards in 2023, and set “only weak, voluntary lead limits in 2025,” requiring no enforcement or disclosure from manufacturers. The FDA’s own January 2025 guidance for lead levels in processed food intended for babies and young children even noted “the purpose of this guidance is to provide information to the industry,” and that the “FDA’s guidance documents do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities.”
In a 2024 report from The National Desk, in which Esfandiary appeared, the FDA said its work on this issue started before 2017, telling The National Desk in a statement that it takes "toxic elements in baby food very seriously," and established a workgroup years ago to "prioritize" the issue. However, in 2021, Congressional investigators found that workgroup had "not resulted in new or stronger regulations to protect babies," and said the FDA "failed to confront the risks of toxic heavy metals in baby food."
“Our expert has gone through the list of all the things that can cause these conditions. The one thing that stands out repeatedly is significant exposure to these heavy metals through consumption of baby food,” Esfandiary said. “This exposure really builds up over time, and sometimes it’s low dose. But it builds up over time, and the scientific evidence shows that that can have a meaningful effect on how your brain develops as you grow older. So, in the cases, that we’ve worked up to trial, the exposure to heavy metals in the baby food has really been the outstanding feature that made the difference in how that child’s development occurred.”
A 2024 report from the Cleveland Clinic noted, “at high levels, these neurotoxins can delay and impair brain development in young children.” The clinic said that heavy metals may contribute to infants’ and children’s behavioral concerns, including attention disorders, increased cancer risk, learning problems, and slow growth and development.
“These companies have often thrown up their hands and said, ‘Well, these metals are everywhere. The consumer really cannot do anything to get out of this issue.’ The issue is that the manufacturer can do everything to fix this issue, to fix this problem of heavy metals and baby food, and they simply haven’t,” Esfandiary said. “My message to parents is to do your research as much as you can. There is a lot more information available out there nowadays. When you buy baby food products in the grocery store, look out for those QR codes. I know that companies like Happy Family and Earth’s Best, at least here in California, have started to put those QR codes on their products that you can scan and see what the metal levels are.”
