“We appreciate your attention to your commitment to consider potential chemical hazards, including toxic elements, when conducting hazard analysis,” said Susan Mayne, director of the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, and Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting FDA, written. Commissioner of Food and Drugs, in a letter addressed to all manufacturers and processors of baby and toddler food.
“This is a welcome change at the FDA,” Krishnamoorthi said. “However, we are disappointed that the FDA has not committed to establishing concrete rules to remove toxic heavy metals from all baby foods. This underscores the need for Congress to enact legislation with strict standards and timelines.
“Babies do not have time to wait for the FDA to fill in details. Parents: I encourage you to keep going with us,” he said.
In the announcement, the FDA manufacturers pointed out that exposure to toxic elements in the food supply ‘will be taken extremely seriously, especially when it comes to the health and safety of the youngest and most vulnerable in the population’.
The reaction of advocacy groups to the FDA action was lukewarm.
“I think it’s a positive – but limited – step. I’m disappointed that there is no timeline for action,” said Tom Neltner, director of chemicals for health at the Environmental Defense Fund.
“In the absence of enforceable standards and deadlines, it’s hardly anyone of us would call progress,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of the EEC, or the Environment Working Group.
Food businesses are already required by law to look at hazards, “including metals in baby food, and to make changes in the way they make food and contain ingredients to reduce or eliminate the hazards,” he said. Faber said.
“The law is pretty clear, but we doubt whether baby food businesses follow this provision. We also doubt the FDA has applied it. So, today’s announcement may indicate that the FDA will actually look at food safety plans to determine what they are doing,” he said.
“The devil is in the details,” said Jane Houlihan, national director of science and health at Healthy Babies Bright Futures, a coalition of advocates committed to reducing babies’ exposure to neurotoxic chemicals.
“Although the update and letter are vague, the FDA is giving a sign of intent to take a series of actions to reduce children’s exposure to toxic heavy metals,” she said.
“For meaningful, significant reduction in exposure, the FDA must impose enforceable health restrictions on toxic heavy metals in the foods that contain the greatest exposure, including foods based on rice and snacks, juices, cereals and root vegetables,” Houlihan said.
Internal documents showed ‘dangerous’ levels
“Dangerous levels of toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury exist in baby food at levels that are higher than what experts and governing bodies allow,” said Rep. Krishnamoorthi told CNN when the report was released.
Whether the baby food was organic or not, the subcommittee found: the levels of toxic metals were still high.
Krishnamoorthi said the spreadsheets provided by the manufacturers were ‘shocking’ because it had evidence that some baby foods contained hundreds of parts per billion of dangerous metals.
“Yet we know that in many cases we should not have more than one-digit parts per billion of any of these metals in any of our food,” he told CNN.
Not fully cooperative
According to the report, three additional baby food businesses did not fully cooperate in the subcommittee’s investigation: Sprout Organic Foods; Walmart, which sells baby food from Parent’s Choice; and Campbell Soup Company, which sells baby products brand Plum Organics.
“The subcommittee is very concerned that their lack of cooperation could obscure the presence of even higher levels of toxic heavy metals in their baby food products than their competitors’ products,” the report said.
At the time, a Campbell spokesman told CNN the company complied, a statement contradicted by the subcommittee in the report:
“Instead of providing any substantive information, Campbell provided a spreadsheet in which he himself stated that each of his products ‘met the criteria,'” the subcommittee wrote in its investigation.
Following the publication of the report, Walmart also told CNN that it complied with the subcommittee’s investigation, which a subcommittee spokesman falsely stated during the report. Sprout Organic Foods did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
A subcommittee spokesman told CNN on Friday that Walmart and Campbell had now provided internal documents on the levels of toxic metals to the subcommittee. These documents are currently being analyzed. Sprout Organic Foods has asked for an extension, which has been granted.
Chemicals that are of concern to children
“There was a time when we used metals as the predominant pesticide for years, assuming it was safe,” he said. Leonardo Trasande, head of environmental pediatrics at NYU Langone, said.
From the time of conception to the age of 2, babies have an extremely high sensitivity to neurotoxic chemicals, said Jane Houlihan, national director of science and health at Bright Futures.
“Their brains form quickly. When exposed to metals that can disrupt natural processes, the impact of behavioral problems ranges from aggression to IQ loss and all sorts of cognitive and behavioral deficits that can persist throughout life,” Houlihan said.
“Babies get the pound the highest dose of these heavy metals compared to other sections of the population,” she said. “So the consequences are serious.”
Legislation may still be needed
The congressional inquiry has suggested a number of regulatory steps that could be taken by the FDA.
Instead of setting one food limit at a time, the FDA should standardize the maximum levels for each toxic metal that a baby’s brain can develop and apply it to all foods, the report said.
The subcommittee recommended that any baby food product be mandatory before it hits the shelves. Manufacturers should no longer be allowed to simply test ingredients.
Substitutes should be found for any ingredients that are over the recommended limits, and if that cannot happen, the food or ingredient should not be used in baby food, the subcommittee said. Take rice, for example, which is a primary source of inorganic exposure to arsenic for babies.
“Every baby food manufacturer … is aware that we are no longer going to sit in Congress and accept the status quo,” Krishnamoorthi told CNN last month.
On Thursday, Krishnamoorthi, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Democratic Representative Tony Cárdenas of California announced that they had drafted a bill that they had sent to the FDA.
They asked the agency to respond with ‘technical guidance to strengthen the effectiveness of the legislation’.
“It is unacceptable that despite parents’ best efforts to keep their children safe, some leading manufacturers of baby food products have introduced products that expose children to dangerous toxins,” Klobuchar said in a press release.
“This legislation will protect children and ensure that they get off to a healthy start by holding manufacturers responsible for removing toxins from baby and toddler foods. I will continue to fight to give parents the peace of mind they deserve,” she said.