Making Baby Foods Safer (2)
Yesterday on The PediaBlog, we learned that for at least the past 20 years, study after study has found worrisome contamination of commercial baby food with neurotoxic heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. Although many of the studies found levels below the Food and Drug Administration’s safety threshold, that’s not necessarily reassuring to pediatricians, who know their youngest patients could potentially be harmed by heavy metals and other environmental contaminants at extremely low levels. The FDA has been addressing the problem of heavy metals in baby foods since 2021 by issuing guidelines that are designed “to reduce dietary exposure to contaminants to as low as possible, while maintaining access to nutritious foods.” The agency’s work to date has resulted in significant progress in reducing exposure to environmental contaminants from foods and Closer to Zero builds on this progress. We have prioritized foods commonly eaten by babies and young child...