Baron & Budd, P.C. Brings Attention to Lead in Popular Children’s Foods

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (June 10, 2010) Working with the California-based Environmental Law Foundation, Baron & Budd, P.C. is bringing attention to the problem of lead in a number of food and beverage products that are popular with children, such as packaged peaches, packaged pears, fruit cocktail, apple juice, and grape juice. Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of lead—including decreased I.Q.—and their bodies absorb lead at a higher rate than adults.

On June 9, 2010, a “Notice of Violation” was mailed to the California Attorney General, 58 county District Attorneys, and the affected manufacturers, retailers and distributors, notifying them that particular food products frequently consumed by children contain lead at levels high enough to require a warning under Proposition 65. A complete list of the companies and affected products appears on the notice and accompanying lists. Lead exposure in children and ELF’s testing of children’s food products were highlighted today on NPR’s All Things Considered.

“We’ve had great success enforcing the provisions of Prop 65 to protect California children from toxic exposures,” said Laura Baughman, the Baron & Budd attorney who heads up the law firm’s Prop 65 litigation team. “We’re committed in this case to doing everything we can to protect children from a health risk that may be hiding in their lunch boxes.”

Baughman was also the lead Baron & Budd attorney in a 2009 settlement with Laidlaw Transit, in which Laidlaw agreed to invest up to $34 million over a five year period in a court-supervised program to retrofit or replace older school buses in its California fleet in order to ensure that each bus has modern, approved air pollution control devices to reduce diesel exhaust.

About Baron & Budd, P.C.

Dallas-based Baron & Budd, P.C., with offices in Baton Rouge, Austin and Beverly Hills, is a nationally recognized law firm with more than three decades of experience representing people and communities harmed by corporate negligence. With over 60 attorneys and approximately 200 staff, Baron & Budd’s size and resources have enabled the firm to take on some of the largest and most complex cases of their kind. The cornerstone of the firm is toxic tort litigation, representing individuals, municipalities and water providers seeking redress from manufacturers of hazardous products and corporate polluters. The firm handles cases for injuries caused by exposure to asbestos, benzene and other toxic substances. Baron & Budd’s work includes representation of securities investors defrauded by corporate wrongdoing and consumers and businesses in class actions and insurance litigation.