Gerber Baby Products Company is facing a new lawsuit that claims two of the company’s products featured in their monthly subscription box contain dangerous .

Gerber currently offers organic subscription boxes for purees, pouches, and snacks. , the box costs $69.99 and works out to be around $1-2 per meal. They offer boxes catered to children 6, 9, and 12 months old.

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Unfortunately, Gerber has been one of many baby-food companies that have been exposed for trace metals in their products. In March, the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a report detailing that many popular baby foods contain dangerous amounts of trace metals, such as cadmium, arsenic, lead, and mercury.

Only four companies provided information to the committee to be used in the report -- Nurture, Beech-Nut, Hain, and Gerber. However, arsenic, lead, and cadmium were found in all four of the companies, and mercury was discovered in Nurture’s products, reports.

Now, a new lawsuit is hoping to hold one of those companies accountable. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that Gerber continues to fail to comply with Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, which became law in 1986.

Proposition 65 is a consumer protection law aimed to safeguard against toxic ingredients. It requires the reformulation of products and/or the inclusion of warning labels if a product is discovered to have dangerous levels of toxic ingredients, such as .

The complaint claims that two products featured in Gerber’s subscription boxes have tested dangerously high for lead levels, much more than is the allowable exposure limit for adults in California. The products are part of Gerber’s 2nd Food collection, which is made for 6- to 8-month-olds – the Gerber carrot, sweet potato and pea flavor, and Gerber sweet potato, carrot, apple, and cinnamon flavor.

While adults are cautioned to be exposed to no more than 0.5 micrograms of lead per day, the Gerber carrot, sweet potato and pea flavor contained almost double that amount when tested, at 1.37 micrograms. Even more concerning, the Gerber sweet potato, carrot, apple and cinnamon flavor contained 1.7 micrograms, triple the recommended serving for adults.

“Gerber’s refusal to warn parents ... (and) continuing to sell baby food they know contains lead until a lawsuit forces them to remove the products from the market defies comprehension,” environmental attorney Vineet Dubey, who filed the lawsuit, explained of the case.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Ecological Alliance, an LLC based in California, which claims to be working in the public’s best interest. “Despite everything that is known about the dangers of lead in baby food, the problem is not going away,” the company explained in a statement, reports.

The company also emphasized that given Gerber’s reputation and resources, there’s no reason action shouldn’t be taken immediately to improve the ingredients in their food products.

“No baby food brand is as woven into the history of American families as Gerber. Gerber relies on that legacy of trust,” Ecological Alliance’s statement continued. “They certainly have the resources to rigorously test their foods to ensure they are not dosing babies with heavy metals that can cause lifelong damage.”

We will continue to update our readers as this story progresses.

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