Starting on Wednesday, children’s food makers who sell products in California will have to make a major transformation towards transparency and provide a quick response code to their packages that take consumers to test the results for their presence in their four heavy metal products: mercury, arsenic and cadmium.
Even low levels of exposure to these compounds can cause serious and irreversible damage often to develop the brain of young children.
Change, required under the California Law, which was approved by the Legislative Authority in 2023, will affect consumers worldwide. Since companies are unlikely to create separate packages for the California market, QR codes are likely to be on products sold throughout the country, and consumers everywhere will be able to display heavy metal concentrations.
Although companies are required to start printing a new packaging and publishing the results of the manufactured product test starting from January, it may take time for products to strike groceries.
The law was inspired by a 2021 Investigation of Congress This has found high levels of heavy metals in bottled foods that are marketed for children and young children. The foods of children and their components had up to 91 times the level of arsenic, up to 177 times the level of lead, up to 69 times the level of cadmium, and up to five times the level of mercury that the United States allows in bottled or drinking water, The investigation was found.
A 2021 congress is found in high levels of heavy metals in bottled foods that are marketed for children and young children.
(Jeff Greenburg / Getty Emaiz)
on Half of exposure to providing food lead For children under the age A study by the US Department of Agriculture. California, AB899, does not include infant formula.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not place the maximum heavy metal levels allowed for children’s foods, but it is going out “Movement levels” for heavy metals – The levels that the agency may consider in additional procedures, which can include discussions with the manufacturer about lowering level or demanding to withdraw products from the market. But even with a clearer direction on this issue, it is possible that most consumers are possible to explain disclosure on new stickers.
Heavy metals are not unique for processed children’s foods. In fact, it occurs naturally in the soil, as it is present in the fruits and vegetables sold on the production corridor or even grown in a home garden. Heavy metal levels are often high in spices and feeding root vegetables, such as sweet potatoes and beets. High levels of lead and other heavy metals in processed foods tend to come from raw ingredients instead of the manufacturing process.
Frankly, the European Union [European Union] “We hope that the D-Rolling Hills Estates, which wrote the California Bill, said:” We hope that the D-Rolling Hills ESTATES, which wrote California, said: “We hope that the D-Rolling Hills Estates will reach, which wrote the California bill.
Until then, Murtsuchi said, the law aims to “push the behavior of the responsible companies” by making the levels of minerals transparent to consumers-and help
High risk of California families
Eren Yanovic of San Diego was nourishing her daughter Nwila and Napana for one year -old valleys purchased in the local dollar tree for six months when she learned that the products had been called. Bags contain lead concentration 200 times higher From the level of the proposed food and drug management procedure.
A test in the pediatrician office revealed that a Nueli was distinguished by poisoning, with more than three times the lead, such as the level that is considered a center of disease control. A safe level of bullets has not been determined in children, and “even low levels of lead in the blood may be shown to reduce children’s intelligence, the ability to pay attention, and academic achievement”, ” According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Noelie has a delay in speech that requires three days a week, which her mother attributes to the bullets of the bags. It is part of a collective suit seeking compensation from Wanabana.
Yancovich told California’s law as a “great idea” that hopes to help prevent companies from selling polluted bags. “I usually be a person who will be in government supervision of everything small in my life, but it is cracked that we cannot protect our children and our children.”
Ron Simon, Food safety lawyer In Houston, which represents Yancovich, it fears that the law contains many gaps by leaving importers and distributors.
“I am worried that this did not go far enough,” he said. Simon said that many products that are sold in the United States-including Wanabana-are manufactured by foreign companies, and the law may allow distributors in the United States to avoid responsibility.
It is not clear how the new requirements will be friendly to consumers. To access data, shoppers will have to wipe the fast response icon, then enter the 12 -digit barcode number, along with a separate lot number. It will be directed to a web page with test results for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium concentration in the product.
Then they are left to find out exactly what these degrees mean, and we think about how to compare the numbers with other products, not to mention the fresh foods that they may pick up in the product corridor.
“If you are in the grocery store and have a child in the cart, you try to climb and fall in the corridors and verify, what is the point of making this work actually?” Jacqueline Bowen, CEO of the clean stickers project, an organization that testifies to low levels of toxins, said.
“I think it is very good to enable families to the information they need to make safer options for their children,” said Dr. Tania Al -Tamman, a pediatrician in Kalabasas and author of the book “The Book”.What do you feed your child?“She says that the law is likely to” raise the tape in terms of the quality of the foods that we fed our children and our infants and young children. ”
She said the problem is that heavy metals occur naturally in the Earth’s crust, and small amounts can be found in all foods – including those in the production corridor instead of the package. Altmann added that buying organic food or making children at home does not reduce the risks.
She said: “Parents will be humiliated and panic when all these data are broadcast, because it is unlikely to have any products that contain fruits and vegetables levels of heavy metals.”
However, fruits and vegetables are necessary for a healthy diet.
He said: “We want to make sure that parents do not refuse to give their food they need based on this.” Dr. Stephen AbramsProfessor of Pediatrics at the University of Texas at Austin del.
Abrams said that there should be studies looking at how the law affects consumer behavior. “You don’t want people to turn into fast foods,” which is not required to test heavy metals.
Dr. Collin Kraft, a pediatrician attending the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, said that although the law represents a real opportunity to maintain the safety of California children, there is no need for parents to panic, “said Dr. Kulin Kraft, a pediatrician attending the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, said that although the law represents a real opportunity to maintain the safety of California children, there is no need for parents to panic,” said Dr. Kulin Kraft, a pediatrician attending the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.
“Let’s not go abroad and be very worried about it. We’ll have a lot of things. If you are worried about bullets, talk to the pediatrician, and test your child,” said Kraft.
Driving changes in the child food industry
Boen, of the clean stickers project, says that the condition is already an effect on manufacturers and pressure on the rest of the supply chain. She works with children’s food makers to prepare for the law, and help them test each component and final product and prepare web sites to provide a consumer friend’s arrival to the results.
Serenity Kids, a food manufacturer for children, got products in 20,000 stores including buds, Albertson and Whole Foods, already a clean certificate while the California Law was approved. However, CEO and co -founder Sirinte Carr said that the new requirements led them to reduce their heavy metal concentrations further.
Serenity Kids now require clown suppliers-including farmers-to test their pre-products for heavy metals and provide analysis certificates before the company buys them, and they have dropped suppliers who were not ready to comply. The company then takes a test on all its 35 final products every month to ensure that additional pollutants are not provided during the manufacturing process.
Carr said that all this test became expensive, and it was difficult to find a seasoning resource that was ready until pre -test. But the process led them to switch some high -risk ingredients, such as a specific type of mushroom, which leads to a safest child product for consumers.
“The child food industry was awaiting the guidelines of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for years. I have made a petition for them myself. So it is good that California took the first step towards a set of requirements to maintain the health of children,” Car said.
This article is part of the Times in early childhood, focusing on learning and developing California children from birth to 5 years. For more information about the initiative and its charitable financiers, go to Latimes.com/earlyed.