Pedram Fathi, who was on the same team as the lead counsel in the Monsanto case, joins me to talk about the Baby Food Case and why it s so important to have a court-appointed expert on the topic. Pedram is an attorney who specializes in toxic tort injuries, pharmaceutical liability, class actions, and consumer fraud litigation, and police misconduct. He is also a professor of law at the People's College of Law in Los Angeles and a law school professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been a member of the Piliad, Hardeman and Johnson cases and served as a National Law Journal Finalist for the National Trial Lawyers and Mass Tort Firm of the Year in 2019. He and his partner, Edlin, are the lead attorneys on the first case in California and probably in the nation addressing the shocking story of the ubiquitous toxins in most of the most popular baby food products, including arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and other toxic heavy metals which we know are associated with the onset and/or increased risk of autism and ADHD in children. This new mass tort litigation involves allegations against the major brand manufacturers of baby foods, including Nestle, Beech Nut, Happy Valley Organics, Nestle and Gerber, and Sprout Foods, and Walmart, who are alleged to have knowingly sold baby food with dangerously high levels of toxic metals in their products. We have high rates of autism in American children, and American children ate these foods from about four months old to the age of five years old. We ve been eating these foods all across the U.S. and have been diagnosed with ASD and ADHD at a very young age. This is a problem that needs to be addressed! In this episode, we talk about what is going on and why this is happening and what we should do about it. And we also talk about why we need to do something about it, and what can be done to stop it. Thanks for listening to the podcast and why you should be on the lookout for the next case. and send us your thoughts, comments, and questions you have about this. . Tweet me to let us know what you think of this episode and what you would like to hear from your thoughts on this episode. or your thoughts about it! Tweet Me! if you have a child affected by autism, ADHD, or have an autism diagnosis, or ADHD diagnosis? or are interested in learning more about autism or ADHD.
00:00:01.000I want you to listen carefully to this podcast today and send the link to this podcast to anybody that you know who has a child that is affected by autism spectrum disorder.
00:00:14.000My guest today is Pedramus Fendiary, who is my colleague and friend.
00:00:20.000He was on the same team as I was, the leading counsel of In the Monsanto case, Pedram is an attorney for the firm.
00:00:34.000He specializes in toxic tort injuries, pharmaceutical drug liability, class actions, consumer fraud litigation, and police misconduct.
00:00:44.000He's also a professor of law at the People's College of Law in Los Angeles.
00:00:49.000And today we're going to be talking about baby food.
00:00:52.000Pedram and Edlin are the lead attorneys.
00:00:57.000They filed the first case in California and probably in the nation addressing the shocking story of the ubiquitous toxins in most of the most popular baby food products, including arsenic, cadmium, mercury,
00:01:16.000and other toxic heavy metals, which we know are associated with the onset and with diagnoses, increased risk of a diagnosis of autism as a veteran disorder.
00:01:30.000And ADHD. So if you know anybody who has children who have been diagnosed with these diseases, these injuries, send them the link to this.
00:01:44.000Because we now have, Obama now has over a thousand clients.
00:01:51.000This new mass tort litigation involves allegations against the major brand manufacturers of baby foods, including Nurture, Happy Valley Organics, Beech Nut, Hain, Plum Organics,
00:02:07.000Walmart Parents' Choice, Sprout Foods, and Gerber, who are knowingly selling baby food with dangerously high levels of toxic Thank you.
00:02:22.000and won the $2 billion verdict in Monsanto.
00:02:25.000He and other members of the Roundup trial team in the Piliad, Hardeman and Johnson cases, which I was also involved in, were also honored as elite trial lawyers and mass tort firm of the year finalists in 2020 by the National Law were also honored as elite trial lawyers and mass tort firm of the year finalists in 2020 by the National Law Journal, as well as the 2019
00:02:50.000So, Pedram, welcome to the podcast, and thank you for joining me, and thank you for all your extraordinary work on these issues.
00:03:01.000It's a pleasure to be on with you guys.
00:03:03.000So these baby food cases, as you said, it's truly shocking.
00:03:07.000Last year, a Congressional Subcommittee report came out.
00:03:11.000Detailing that there was significantly elevated levels of toxic heavy metals.
00:03:16.000I mean we're talking potent neurotoxins that can cause brain damage in children at very low levels.
00:03:22.000They found these metals in leading baby food brands sold across the United States and across the world actually.
00:03:28.000They found that these companies that sold these products had repeatedly ignored both their own internal safety standards and that of the safety standards of regulators.
00:03:38.000There's a footnote to this, that unfortunately the FDA has not set any limits for the presence of heavy metals in baby food.
00:03:46.000They have some limits with orange juice, apple juice, and they have limits with heavy metals in adult drinking water, but not in baby foods, shockingly.
00:03:55.000So I think that's part of the problem that's driving this issue.
00:03:58.000We have no regulatory safeguards whatsoever.
00:04:01.000So these baby food manufacturers basically regulate themselves.
00:04:04.000And it turns out that in the interest of profits, they simply didn't care how much heavy metals was in the food as long as it's getting sold.
00:04:10.000And American children ate these foods.
00:04:13.000And we have high rates of autism all across the country in recent years.
00:04:17.000And I think that This is one of the main contributors to that epidemic of autism.
00:04:23.000It's heavy metals in the environment, and even more shockingly, in the very food that babies are eating.
00:04:28.000So we filed the first case of his kind, a personal injury case, on behalf of a young boy in Los Angeles.
00:04:36.000He has autism and ADHD. And from a very young age, from about four months old, all the way up until past the age of three even, he ate these baby foods.
00:04:46.000We're talking substantial amounts of them because really some of these foods don't pack that much nutrition in any given portion so kids end up eating repeated portions throughout the day and Noah was one of these children and he has been diagnosed with autism and it's incredibly debilitating for him and his family.
00:05:04.000So we filed this case in an LA state court.
00:05:07.000We're taking it to trial as soon as possible.
00:05:10.000Great thing about being in California state court Is that if you're under the age of 14, you have a statutory right to a trial within 120 days of asking for it and being granted by the court.
00:05:21.000So we're very excited about aggressively pushing this case to trial.
00:05:24.000We're in the discovery process right now, and the court is just gearing up to rule on the issue of whether there's enough science for the case to proceed to trial.
00:05:34.000And we just had that hearing with our experts.
00:05:37.000It went exceptionally well, so we're very excited.
00:05:39.000And one of the ironies of this case is that these particular products, many of them were labeled as organic and they were marketed specifically to parents by telling parents that this was safe for your child, that if you bought this, your child would be safe.
00:06:00.000And unfortunately, people might think, well, why is that?
00:06:03.000I mean, is that the whole point of me buying organic so I can avoid stuff like heavy metals?
00:06:08.000Well, Unfortunately, there's numerous reasons for why organic foods are also implicated, primarily because less than, I think, 1% of U.S. farmland is actually organic.
00:06:20.000With the majority of the farmland being, you know, using synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, there's a great amount of cross-contamination going on.
00:06:28.000And where organic fields are used, you know, historically, where pesticides will be sprayed on those locations, the heavy metals in those pesticides Leaches onto water.
00:06:39.000For example, rice is grown in water in paddy fields.
00:06:43.000It stays in the water for years and years and years, such that even when you're using organic farming methods, the arsenic in the water left over from the non-organic days is still there, and it leaches onto the rice, ends up in baby food.
00:06:57.000And rice is a big, big, big ingredient in baby food.
00:07:03.000You know, it's a huge commodity, and it's laced with arsenic.
00:07:08.000Unfortunately, the organic brand doesn't necessarily mean that your food is safe from heavy metals.
00:07:13.000Some of the manufacturing processes these companies use to make these foods are all the same, regardless of whether the food is organic or not.
00:07:21.000We think that some of the manufacturing processes, outdated equipment, leaching, cross-contamination, might also be involved here.
00:07:29.000But also, I should say, probably most importantly, even though these companies use organic products, They also add additional ingredients to some of these foods, such as ingredients that make the foods easier to chew and digest by a baby.
00:07:46.000And it turns out that some of these pre-mixed minerals and vitamins that are inserted are themselves laced with huge amounts of toxic heavy metals.
00:07:54.000So regardless of whether the food is organic or not, you're being exposed to them.
00:07:58.000And the other shocking thing about this case is that these companies knew they were poisoning the children.
00:08:06.000It's truly mind-numbing to just think about what this means for a second because the documents that these companies have already given to congressional investigators show that they knew about the issue years and years ago, but they just, for whatever reason, ignored it and kept selling the product.
00:08:25.000And didn't bring it to Congress's attention until 2021.
00:08:29.000I mean, they've been selling these products for years and generations.
00:08:33.000Or the attention of FDA or the other regulators.
00:08:37.000Or the attention of the FDA or any other regulators.
00:08:39.000And I think that to the extent that the FDA has known about this issue, I think, and we'll see the evidence is probably going to support this, we're looking at a case of regulatory capture where the agency is just so embedded with the business interest that it's just looked the other way.
00:08:55.000What else could explain this gross oversight by the FDA, even if they knew about it?
00:09:00.000In a case, it may be tried as early as this summer.
00:09:06.000I think that more realistically, we're looking at a trial date of end of 2022, start of 2023.
00:09:12.000We're trying to push for a 2022 trial date, but that remains to be seen.
00:09:17.000And it's important for people to understand that in this case, kind of uniquely, the statute of limitations is dramatically extended compared to most cases because the statute does not start running until the child reaches the age of 18.
00:09:36.000You know, one of the reasons we're in this fortunate position in this litigation is that exact reason.
00:09:41.000The statute of limitations is told in most states, I believe, definitely in California, Well, I think that the congressional staff that put together that report are certainly concerned about this.
00:10:11.000I know that some Senate Democrats Have proposed the Baby Food Safety Act or something to that effect, looking to put actual limits, right?
00:10:20.000Particularly since after the Healthy Babies Bright Futures report came out and is calling on Congress to pass meaningful legislation implementing maximum amounts of heavy metals permitted to be in baby foods.
00:10:34.000Who are the worst villains in this group that you're litigating against?
00:10:38.000So I would say the seven manufacturers identified in the congressional report, so Walmart, Beech Nut, Heinz Celestial, Plum, Sprout, and Nurture.
00:10:50.000And these seven manufacturers really, I mean, their own internal documents that they gave to Congress show the magnitude of the problem.
00:10:57.000We're talking they had 1,000 parts per billion of arsenic in one of the ingredients, 100 parts per And just to put in context, one part per billion of lead has been shown to be incredibly damaging to a human brain.
00:11:11.000So you think about it, you have 10 parts per billion, 100 parts per billion.
00:11:14.000I mean, you're literally almost poisoning children at this point.
00:11:18.000One part per billion can impose measurable IQ loss in a child.
00:11:44.000So there's numerous steps that parents can take.
00:11:46.000So not all baby food has this problem with heavy metals.
00:11:50.000There are actually baby foods that are safe for consumption and don't have this heavy metal issue.
00:11:55.000There is an organization, Healthy Babies Bright Futures, that actually put out a report before the congressional report came out.
00:12:02.000Identifying both the companies and the products that are problematic that have this heavy metal issue, as well as the ones that don't have this issue.
00:12:09.000You can also find additional information about which foods appear to be safe on our website, bombhandlinglaw.com.
00:12:16.000And I would also urge parents to absolutely, if you can have the time and means, make your own baby food.
00:12:22.000Putting the ingredients together yourself and buying organically, ideally, you know precisely what's going inside your child's body, and that's usually a more safer route.
00:12:31.000So, for people who are listening to this show who may have a child who suffers from autism or ADHD, what do you recommend they do?
00:13:14.000We're accepting cases from all across the U.S. It doesn't matter what state you're in.
00:13:18.000You give us a call, and if your case meets our criteria, we're happy to accept it.
00:13:23.000And the best way to reform this kind of behavior in many cases is litigation.
00:13:28.000If these companies know that they can get away with anything they want with FDA, the one place where they face justice and are accountable for the cause that they've imposed on our children is in the courthouse.