Mistake! Law Firm Asks Us to Hype Its Baby Food Scaremongering

There’s a secret about the modern news cycle many people don’t know: Much of it is manufactured by public relations (PR) firms trying to gin up favorable media coverage for their clients. Each week, an untold number of press releases and story pitches go out to major news outlets, podcast hosts and political commentators, all asking these opinion molders to promote new books, dietary supplements, and even pending litigation. That’s right, trial lawyers send out marketing materials hoping journalists will cover their lawsuits favorably. You didn't think all those chemical scare stories in the news were organic, did you? I get at least a dozen of these emails weekly. Here’s just one recent example from a law firm prevaricating about the supposed dangers of heavy metals in baby food:

Hi Cameron,

“Common baby food ingredients like rice, root vegetables, and spices can absorb heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. Exposure during the first 1,000 days of life — when the brain grows fastest — is linked to increased risks of autism and developmental delays. The experts at [law firm] have identified four unexpected baby foods that have been associated with elevated heavy metal exposure.” 

Almost none of this is correct, as regular ACSH readers will already know. But let’s dissect some of the specific claims in this email to illustrate the point.

“Brown rice syrup is often used to sweeten baby snacks or cereals, but it can contain inorganic arsenic, a known neurotoxin. Arsenic levels in some rice-based ingredients have tested at over 100 parts per billion (ppb), far exceeding the FDA’s limit of 10 ppb for drinking water” [emphasis theirs].

The email didn’t cite the referenced study (red flag number 1), so we can’t verify these claims directly. That said, surveying the available evidence on arsenic in rice paints a less alarming picture. According to a February 2025 review, “there is a potential risk to harmful exposure to arsenic from brown rice among children under the age of 5.” But the authors supplied some critical context: 

• “… [T]here are no acute public health risks indicated for the general American population from rice-related arsenic exposures.”

• “The values reported in the analysis [arsenic intakes of 0.08–1.19 µg/kg bw/day for U.S. children and adults] indicate that … the daily inorganic arsenic exposure for most Americans within the analysis did not rise to a level that was a concern to pose elevated risks of harmful health outcomes” [my emphasis]. 

• “This finding was in agreement with previous evidence that finds limited concentrations and population-level exposure risks associated with arsenic and US rice-based foods.”

This isn’t to say arsenic is harmless. Indeed, it can be very dangerous. But the potential toxicity, as always, is determined by dose. Are children exposed to enough of the chemical to suffer real damage to their development? The answer, based on the latest evidence, is “no.” Northumbria University professor of nutrition Iain Brownlee reached the same conclusion after analyzing the review paper linked above. 

Back to the PR email:

“Fruit purees with added cinnamon often contain lead, especially when cinnamon is sourced from contaminated regions. In 2023, products like cinnamon-apple pouches were recalled for lead levels more than 2,000 times higher than proposed safe limits. Expert insight: ‘Spices like cinnamon can be a major source of lead in baby foods, even in small amounts.’”

The vagaries here are unhelpful. Which expert are they referring to, and what constitutes a “major source”? And how often is “often”? A single recall surely doesn’t qualify. In fact, that example is noteworthy because it’s a glaring exception to the rule that America’s food supply is incredibly safe. 

Here are the specifics about this recall parents should know. The lead-contaminated products were first identified by the North Carolina Department of Public Health, thanks to routine blood testing of children enrolled in Medicaid, and reported to the FDA. The agency informed the manufacturer, which voluntarily recalled the affected products nationwide. There were four reported illnesses and no deaths, per an FDA update in November 2023. The CDC had detected 130 confirmed cases of elevated blood lead levels by October 2024, though it appears that these were asymptomatic.

The Ecuador-based cinnamon supplier that contaminated the products was closed by the country’s regulators. The U.S. company that sold the fruit pouches went bankrupt less than a year later. These were well-deserved consequences, but the point for our purposes is that there were serious consequences for putting children in harm’s way.

One more excerpt from the email:

“There’s growing consensus among toxicologists, pediatricians, and regulators: no level of lead or arsenic is considered safe for infants. During critical stages of brain development, repeated exposure through everyday foods can have lifelong impacts.”

I co-host a podcast with a medical toxicologist, and ACSH has plenty of relevant experts on staff. None of them talk about heavy metal exposure in these absolute terms. While everyone agrees that children shouldn’t be exposed to these chemicals whenever possible, the reality is that zero heavy metal exposure isn’t an option, because they are natural elements found in Earth’s crust. As my colleague Dr. Josh Bloom pointed out in response to another set of lawyers  in 2017:

 “There isn't a single drink or food in the world that doesn't have at least some lead in it, even if it's only a few atoms. Yes—there is a safe level of lead or we'd all be dead.”  

Instead of warning about “no safe levels,” we aim to minimize exposure, and we’re actually quite good at that. The American Academy of Pediatrics observed in 2021 that “The low levels of heavy metals found in baby foods likely are a relatively small part of a child's overall toxic metal exposure risk.” Bloom added that lead exposure has plummeted in recent decades. And according to a 2016 study, “Overall, the concentrations of lead … in [US] baby food samples are considered very low ...”

Bottom line: trial lawyers are unreliable sources of information about toxicology and food safety. When they contact ACSH requesting free press, we might just give it to them.