A new report has revealed shocking levels of dangerous heavy metals in baby food and
FDA has been asleep at the wheel as usual. I have Farron Cousins with me to talk about
it, he's the editor of the trial lawyer magazine and honestly, I don't, I just say this for
the right reason, one of the best progressive reporters in this business, I really do mean
that. Thank you.
Farron, I looked at this story and I wasn't all that surprised, you know, it's the FDA,
but lay this story out. Here we have, we have baby food that has cadmium, lead, arsenic
in it and the FDA has been diddling around with this for a generation, almost. Take it
from there. It, it really has. What this report tells
us and they've been looking into this for several years, because they had inklings,
they had reports, they had internal documents that showed, okay, well, these baby food companies
know they've got some heavy metals in their food. So let's find out how bad the problem
is. They didn't compel any of these companies to cooperate, which is a big, big misstep
by the way. But then we find out not only are there shocking levels, I mean, we're talking
about hundreds of parts per billion more than what would be considered safe, but the FDA
also has no limits. There's no limits on most baby food.
See, see that's the problem. They don't have limits on things like PFAS, for example, that's
in our water because they haven't studied it. They, the politics have, have prevented
it. They don't have limits on things like, like arsenic. They've got a limit on lead,
which is one part per billion in baby food, which is way crazy because lead, because,
because lead is cumulative. It's bio-persistent, and it's cumulative and it's bioactive in
the system, causes neurological disease. But who, okay, so who are these companies? Let's
call some names, Gerber, Beech-Nut, Happy baby, Campbell Soup and any time, by the way,
anytime I see Nestle involved. Yeah, Nestle’s Gerber.
Nestle is Gerber. What an awful company. I mean just the worst of the worst predator
company. And so here, here's the point, they're saying this, which I think is ridiculous.
Well, you know what, we tested each of the components. If we used rice, we tested the
rice. If we use whatever we tested it, doesn't make any difference.
Right. They never tested the end product, which is
the composite of all of these metals. Right. So, so they would take like, okay,
well, the rice has some mercury in it. The, the, the carrots have some arsenic in it.
The peas, they've got some lead, but we're just going to mix them all together and add
all of these horrible things into this horrid concoction that you're feeding your child.
We're not going to tell you about it. The FDA doesn't care about it. And it took Congress
to finally say, hey, uh, companies, could you, would you be willing to hand over your
studies? You don't have to if you don't want to.
Yeah. This, this is systemic failures across the
board. Yeah. Please do it voluntarily.
Right. You understand they do the same thing with
the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah.
Please, please would you please, oh, would you please give us this information? This
is what they're doing here. Now, just to give you a sense of it. Okay. Beech-Nut, 800 parts
per billion in lead, 800 parts per billion, 300 parts per billion of cadmium. Now we,
it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand, go Google it. See what cadmium can do to the
neurological centers of your, of your body. See what lead can do. See what arsenic can
do. These are all heavy metals. They collect in the body. They stay there. They don't move
through the body and it's here today and gone tomorrow. That's why every time you see these
lead paint cases, these kids that have been eating paint off the side of the wall, they're
permanently damaged the rest of their life. Right.
The IQ is affected. Looks, they, they develop Asperger's disease, things that look like
autism and so we know what the problem is and these companies, they know that they could
go to certain places in the world where we have less cadmium in the rice, less lead in
the rice. They could go there, but they say, oh, no, let's go over here because we get
a better deal. Right.
They're going to send us rice that, yeah, it might be infected with, with lead or mercury,
but we're getting a good deal. Well, and people need to start asking questions
as to why are there no limits on these heavy metal toxins in baby foods? You're talking
about the most vulnerable portion of any population anywhere is these developing children. You
know, from the time they are, most of them about three months old, when they start eating
foods like this, they're still developing. Their brains have not finished. You know,
their neurological system has not finished being put together and you're already putting
toxic metals into them. Why did the FDA never decide, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't
poison kids? Yeah. Farron, how about this. So Campbell
Soup and Walmart said, no, we're not giving you our stuff and the FDA has said, okay.
That's ok. The FDA needs to be completely just start from scratch again, get all of
these political pimps, all of these corporate pimps that worked for the FDA that all they
care about, they're always looking for their next job. If I get mad at Campbell Soup, or
I get mad at Walmart, they might not give me a job when I leave the FDA. And we see
it all the time in pharmaceutical cases, you know, we see, we see, hey, here's your way
out of the FDA. You'll see Pfizer or Merck, here's your way out of the FDA. Because if
you work with us on this Joe or Mary, you know what we can't promise you, but when you
get out, we might have a job for you that pays a million and half dollars and it's better
than your $125,000 a year. Right. And the, the person who goes and fills
the vacant spot at the FDA also typically comes from that company too. That's the revolving
door. Yeah.
You know, Pfizer will send their people to the FDA, they'll take in the FDA's people.
It's, it's worse with all the drug companies. It is so corrupt. It is just so corrupt and
the American public, maybe they'll pay attention to this. I mean, these are their children.
Because most people say, ah, I don't want to get involved. I don't understand it.