Tanzina Vega: Some of the country's leading baby food brands, including Gerber, Earth's Best Organic and Beech-Nut, have significant levels of toxic heavy metals and chemicals like arsenic, lead, and mercury in their products. That's according to a new report from congressional investigators who examined a range of baby food products, from rice cereals to fruit and vegetable purees. For years now, the federal government has had minimal regulations monitoring the safety of baby food, despite the negative health effects on these heavy metals on infants and toddlers. Laura Riley is a business of food reporter at The Washington Post. Laura, thanks for joining us.

Laura Riley: Thanks for having me Tanzina.

Tanzina: Why are there heavy metals like lead and chemicals like arsenic in so many of these products?

Laura: A couple of reasons. Reason number one, a lot of these toxic metals, heavy metals occur naturally in soil and in water. Additionally, some of this is due to the fact that a lot of baby foods have additives, things like minerals and vitamin mixes, that contain these heavy metals.

Tanzina: Is this naturally occurring or is it occurring because of something that there's no oversight on, or is it because the soil is toxic? How is this happening?

Laura: Well, it's a lack of oversight clearly. The FDA at this point has a maximum level of arsenic for a single type of baby food. For rice cereal, basically, they say it's 100 parts per billion, but everything else lacks a maximum heavy metal count. It's very unclear why that has not-- We have maximum lead for bottled water, for other products, for candies, so why not baby food, is the big question we should be--

Tanzina: I'm sorry, you said for candy there are maximum and there aren't for baby food. Laura, I have a baby. I'm sitting here going, how is that possible?

Laura: Well, it's certainly a question. There are oversight committees that clearly have been falling down on the job with this particular issue. Is it reasonable to say, "Okay, henceforth, these heavy metals, whether it's lead or arsenic or cadmium, we're tolerating 0% of them in baby foods"? Well, maybe not. It might mean that a baby food container is $20 for one of those little three-ounce jars. We have to strongly urge the FDA to set levels that are safe. That's a big question.

I think today, as a matter of fact, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, sent out a letter urging the FDA to take swift action on this, in light of the subcommittee's report this past week.

Tanzina: What shocked me about this is that these included major brands like Gerber, brands that a lot of parents like myself are purchasing thinking they're doing the right thing because they're "organic", USDA, organic. Where is the disconnect something being labeled as organic and that same product having high levels of toxic metals?

Laura: A lot of these companies, they don't produce the ingredients that go into their products. Let's say something like Campbell's, which makes Plum baby foods. They buy ingredients from all over the place and they have to trust- they don't have the wherewithal or infrastructure to test every single ingredient coming into their warehouse. Those ingredients come from dozens, maybe hundreds of different purveyors. From the carrots, to the herbs, to the salts, to everything that goes into those jars.

They're trusting that their subcontractors are testing appropriately and then we are anticipating that these companies, whether it's Beech [unintelligible 00:03:49] Gerber, or Sprout Organics is testing their finished products, and I think that that is just not happening.

Tanzina: Laura, there were other major manufacturers like you mentioned earlier, Campbell Soup and Walmart and others, that did not participate in this congressional investigation. Why was that? Do we know?

Laura: Well, we don't know. I did talk to people at Campbell's and at Walmart and they said, "Well, we didn't give this oversight subcommittee our data, but we did respond to their questions." I think the presumption--

Tanzina: Well that doesn't seem fair, Laura, does it?

Laura: Exactly, but the presumption of guilt is a tricky thing. To me, the bigger issue is what would safe levels look like? The thing about babies, in a perfect world pediatricians say a baby should have nothing but breast milk until four months. Then you slowly start introducing things and by the time they're nine months or a year old, they're eating like us, dozens and dozens of things. The cumulative effect of a metal like lead or arsenic is the issue. If you're eating carrots from over here and cereals from over here, it is a real question, how much is too much. When can you start worrying about an infant's neurological development with some of these metals?

Tanzina: Let's talk about that because I spent the weekend throwing away puffs and teething crackers that had rice flour in them. I threw away, must have been three containers and a couple more containers of crackers. Are we talking about products like this, everything from the purees to the puffs?

Laura: I think that rice has been a problematic ingredient. Because of the way it's grown, it often has arsenic that's leached into it. I'm not going to say avoid rice, but I would be a little more cautious about an ingredient like that. These toxins were found in a real range of products from green veg, to sweet potato, to juices, to those puffs.

Although I will say with the puffs, a lot of pediatricians that I've talked to say that all of these kinds of toddler foods, the kind of foods that go in between infant foods and normal people foods, are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. That a lot of those foods are not medically necessary or advisable. That you're really in a better position if you go from breast milk, baby food or formula, whichever you choose, then into normal people food chopped up small, rather than doing these kind of cheese puff adjacent foods.

Unfortunately, there are tons of parents out there getting hysterical right now saying, "Okay, that's it, I'm going to make my own baby food." There's no saying that some of the vegetables that you source at the grocery store don't also contain some of these. I think really what we need is legislation and the baby food companies to get together with the FDA to establish safe limits across across all of these different metals.

Tanzina: Laura, but that just seems like it should have been done decades ago when baby food was introduced to consumers. It's supposed to be a convenience, I think, for many people who like myself are working parents, who are thinking this says organic, and this is coming from a brand that's reputable and it's supposed to be safe for my kid, and it saves me the trouble of having to make a meal, then why not? It just feels like an absolute-- I just don't understand why these three entities have not come together yet, given that this can have health effects for children. Isn't that right?

Laura: Absolutely. Another thing to consider is a lot of the brands that were named in this study are the brands that are available to Americans who are on WIC, the food subsidy for women and babies and toddlers. The idea that we are saying to these people, "Yes. You're food insecure. Here you go. Here are the brands from which you can choose to feed your baby." These are the ones that actually have tested high for some of these heavy metals. To me, it's redoubling the outreach factor.

Tanzina: Laura, is there a baby food lobby? I'm not joking about that question.

Laura: Well, there is an organization that's come together fairly recently. I think it's called the Baby Food Alliance. Their objective is to do precisely this. The Baby Food Council actually is what it's called. Maybe they're a little bit late to the table on this, but their goal is to have science-based standards that food suppliers can [unintelligible 00:08:31] the industry. This seems imperative given the study findings,

Tanzina: Let's give parents some solutions. You alluded to that earlier, but what are some things that parents can do right now to reduce the metals and the toxins that some of these baby foods carry? Should they be looking for specific brands? Should they be staying away from specific products? Should they, as you mentioned earlier, attempt to make their own? I gave my kid for the first time spaghetti and sauce yesterday, and that was a win. What are your recommendations?

Laura: There are tons of new baby foods on the market. There are those kind of subscription services and ones where their sourcing is really, really exacting, but those really are predicated on having your wallet accommodate that.

Tanzina: Yes. They're not cheap.

Laura: They're not cheap. They really aren't, some of these subscription services where food, HelloFresh comes to your house. They're expensive. You can always make your own. I would suggest breadth of options. This is good for every baby, just in terms of developing a broad palette, but don't stick in a narrow lane. Try to vary what they eat widely for a number of reasons, but also because then you're spreading around, you're minimizing a risk rather than just eating one particular, sweet potatoes and carrots, or that kind of thing.

I would watch the rice. I think that that's something- gravitate towards other grains if possible, as long as there's not any indication of allergies there. I think that also just urge legislators to look into this. This is going to be something that is going to require the outrage of parents across the country to really move the needle on it.

Tanzina: We'll be following this story. Laura Riley is the business of food reporter for The Washington Post. Laura, thanks so much.

Laura: Thank you.

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