Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Gerber Products Company and Nestlé USA, Inc., alleging the companies misled Texas parents about the safety of Gerber baby food, according to an Oct. 14 news release from the Office of the Attorney General.
The lawsuit, filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, alleges the companies described Gerber products as safe, rigorously tested and recommended by pediatricians even though Gerber’s own testing showed dangerous levels of arsenic and lead, the office said.
“When a company makes promises about what parents feed their babies, I will hold it accountable,” Paxton said in the release.
According to the release, the allegations center on testing conducted between 2017 and 2019. The attorney general’s office said Gerber used 67 batches of rice flour with more than nine times the federal bottled-water limit for arsenic, carrots with up to 17 times the bottled-water limit for cadmium, and sweet potatoes with nearly 10 times the limit for lead. The office alleged the company rarely tested for mercury and mostly tested ingredients rather than finished food.
The release said arsenic, lead and mercury are neurotoxins and rank among the most significant threats to human health, and that no established safe level of lead or inorganic arsenic exists for babies.
The office also pointed to a 2021 episode in which Alaska’s state laboratory found two Gerber rice cereal samples above the federal arsenic limit. According to the release, Beech-Nut recalled its cereal, but Gerber issued no recall or warning.
The release said Gerber now posts test results behind a QR code on its labels, but the office maintained that the metal levels and front-of-package safety claims have not changed.
The suit follows a settlement the attorney general reached with baby food company Plum on heavy metal testing and public disclosure, the office said. The allegations in the lawsuit have not been decided in court.