The Food and Drug Administration issued a draft proposal last week that would require companies to limit the amount of lead in certain baby foods given to children 2 years old and younger after outcry from consumer groups and lawmakers.

The FDA said that these guidelines could mean a reduction in lead exposure in certain foods by as much as 24 percent to 27 percent. Healthline, a medical news website, said there are no known safe levels for lead in foods and that lead could enter our food supply in a number of ways, like from the soil.

The FDA said in its guidelines that lead concentrations should be limited to 10 parts per billion in fruits and veggies, and 20 parts per billion in dry cereal.

Too Little Too Late

The Wall Street Journal, citing a report in Consumer Reports, noted that the agency should have gone further. They took issue with the fact that the agency did not crack down on lead levels in “baby junk food,” like puffs and wafers. The report said these products often have the highest level of lead.

Brian Ronholm, the director of food policy at Consumer Reports, said it seems that the FDA’s standards were based “more on current industry feasibility to achieve the limits and not solely on levels that would best protect the public health.”

The FDA issued draft guidelines in hopes that the industry will follow the standard. Healthline noted that reduced levels of lead in processed foods are “not slated to become legally binding, [and] are part of a wider slate of FDA initiatives called ‘Closer to Zero.’”

Dr. Jorge E. Perez, a neonatologist and founder of Florida’s KIDZ Medical Services, told the outlet that “I thought that they should come out a little bit more strongly and make it, as opposed to just recommend or suggest, that they should make that a requirement of industry standards.”

TRENDPOST: Perez noted that many parents might see this report and decide to make their own baby food or products, but he said that might not be a clear solution because a lot of “these products that we get and we purchase at grocery stores also contain these high levels of heavy metals.”

But the problem is widespread. Healthline, citing a report from Healthy Babies Bright Futures, said about 95 percent of the infant products tested contained elevated levels of heavy metals. Lead, a toxic metal, can hurt developing brains… when children should be exposed to the lowest level possible.

Valentine’s Day Box of Lead?

Consumer Reports called on four companies to take dramatic steps to reduce the amount of lead and cadmium in their dark chocolate before Valentine’s Day.

The four companies asked to make the commitment were Mondelez International, Trader Joe’s, Theo Chocolate, and Hershey. These companies received a letter that noted the long-term health issues that could come with ingesting these products like kidney damage and immune system suppression.

Dark chocolate is often looked at as the healthy alternative to milk chocolate because it is known to decrease inflammation and can increase blood flow. 

Consumer Reports said it tested 28 dark chocolate bars and found that 23 contained more lead in an ounce than California’s maximum allowable dose levels for lead or cadmium per day. High levels of exposure to cadmium can cause lung cancer and birth defects.

The National Confectioners Association, which represents chocolate manufacturers, told NPR that the products “cited in this study are in compliance with strict quality and safety requirements, and the levels provided to us by Consumer Reports testing are well under the limits established” in its 2018 settlement established concentration levels for “both lead and cadmium that require warning labels if surpassed,” the report said.

“Food safety and product quality remain our highest priorities and we remain dedicated to being transparent and socially responsible,” a spokesman said.

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on how the public is exposed daily to health-threatening substances found in everyday products that the government knows about, but does not want to anger lobbyists so they keep getting their fat campaign checks. (See “WORRIED ABOUT COVID: ‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’ STILL BEING PRODUCED BY MANUFACTURERS,” “DUPONT SUED OVER ‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’” and “‘FOREVER CHEMICALS,’ FOREVER DEADLY.”)

We’ve noted that nearly all Americans are exposed to PFAS. They can be found in the air or drinking water and the chemicals stay in the bloodstream for a lifetime. 

The chemicals are not regulated so municipalities are not required to test for them in their systems. Scott Faber, the senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, said there are nearly 2,000 public water supplies in the U.S. that have some level of PFOS and PFOA.

We reported in 2020 that besides the chemicals, pesticides, and industrial poisons pumped and sprayed into the earth, water, air, and food, the Defense Department has cited 401 bases in the U.S. that release the firefighting foam-containing chemical perfluoroalkyls (PFAS), toxic chemicals that are in drinking water, in cities and suburbs across America… including some of the country’s largest metropolitan areas.

For well over two years, the mainstream media massively scared the hell out of the world’s population with its COVID War and the non-scientific risk factors.

Yet, there is little mention of extremely deadly PFAS levels in commonly used products as well as the deadly chemicals, pesticides, preservatives, artificial ingredients, and other deadly poisons massively injected into the air, earth, water, and what we eat and drink.