Baby food open letter

This is an open letter written to the Congressional Oversight Committee in response to their report on baby food published February 4th, 2021. The report is scandalous and included numbers which, taken at face value, suggest that the companies represented poison our children with astronomically high levels of inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. Please, read the report for yourself, but here’s a little context.

Summary

The data is self-reported by four brands: HappyBABY, Beech-Nut, Earth’s Best Organic, and Gerber. Campbell, Parent’s Choice, and Sprout Organic Foods brands declined to submit data. The committee collected the most indicting evidence in the self-disclosure to argue for:

1. Mandatory testing of final products.
2. Labeling of product toxic metal ppb (parts per billion).
3. Voluntary phase-out of toxic ingredients, such as rice.
4. FDA standards for toxic metals in baby foods.
5. Parental vigilance to avoid rice products.

The report has two targets: the FDA and seven baby food manufacturing brands. This is what I think the committee is saying:

To the FDA, there is a concerning lack of regulation for toxic metal ppb in baby foods. The FDA should add toxic metal ppb regulation for products given to babies. Also, the FDA should mandate final product testing for baby foods to ensure compliance with these regulations.

(It is surprising given that it has regulations for these toxic metals in other sources, such as lead in tap water. What gives FDA?)

To the manufacturers, especially the three brands who declined to disclose their quality control practices, stop cutting corners and risking our children’s health. If there is an FDA standard-and this is the only one-for no more than 100 ppb inorganic arsenic in rice cereal, don’t write 115 ppb into your internal quality control standards. If there is no standard, don’t wait for the FDA to figure it out - be conservative for the sake of our children.

Letter

Dear Congressional Oversight Committee,

I sympathize with your frustration that former President Trump’s administration did little to respond to your findings, and I recognize that we live in a society that takes little action without antagonism, but I am frustrated that your report hadn’t been more carefully presented. The effect of your report on the average American is likely to be similar to, if not more vitriolic than, Amie’s - throw that shit out! I applaud you for speaking out about these issues. However…

You know this report is going to be written about in every major American news source. Even scrupulous news sources will play to the antagonistic nature of the report. While the outrage will serve your purpose to pressure the FDA and the market to change, the majority of Americans will over-react.

We will boycott all baby food. We will express our outrage on social media and litigate the hell out of these companies. We might even call on someone at the FDA to resign. Then the rage will die down and one or two of your suggestions will see partial success.

But the working mom who faces shame every day for not having enough energy to provide for more of her child’s needs won’t forget your story. She’ll walk away horrified that she’s poisoned her daughter. She’ll face more shame than ever when she tries to make her own baby food and fails because she can’t afford the time or mental energy to figure out why her daughter screams when she eats home-made broccoli paste.

She won’t read your report to the end and discover that, after all you’ve said, your bottom line is to avoid rice-based products; an echo of an FDA regulation on inorganic arsenic in rice cereals published in 2016, upheld by the AAP, and probably already shared with her by her pediatrician. Or dig through your top discoveries to find that the few final product results in your possession, a chart from HappyBABY, shows the Sweet Potato jar she just fed her daughter probably had less than 4.0 ppb lead and that she’ll dramatically reduce her daughter’s risk by simply giving up those Apple & Broccoli puffs. And she certainly won’t spot Healthy Babies, Bright Futures' high-quality research and recommendations you’ve buried in a footnote.

Thank you for publishing your findings. It’s not acceptable to have even 4.0 ppb lead in liquid baby food when the AAP recommends no more than 1 ppb in school drinking fountains. It’s not acceptable for baby food manufacturers to test only ingredients for toxic metals when the true risk to children is the combined toxicity of the final product. And it’s not acceptable that manufacturers have not ceased production of rice-based products with order-of-magnitude higher levels of all toxic metals.

Nevertheless, I wish you’d handled this report with more care, for the sake of many who can’t think deeply about this subject right now. You’ve had access to this data since November 2019 - would it have been possible to consider the wider audience of your publication?

These questions may already plague your conscience, and I submit to you that I don’t have a better answer. It may have been inevitable. I may be reacting from the same shock over our country’s brokenness that’s struck me through 2020 until today, some of which I’ve written about in american racism. It’s in the media’s hands now; may they report with both transparency and sensitivity the details you’ve begun to expose.

Your Obedient Servant,

A. Bilson