Court Excludes Expert Witnesses Linking Metal in Baby Foods to Autism, ADHD Among Children

A case management conference is scheduled for April 2, at which point lawyers will meet with the U.S. District Judge presiding over hundreds of toxic baby food lawsuits, to determine the future of federal litigation.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all lawsuits claiming heavy metal contamination in baby food caused children to develop autism or ADHD has thrown out plaintiffs’ general causation arguments, excluding key expert witnesses from testifying at trial.

Over the past few years, nearly 400 product liability lawsuits have been brought throughout the federal court system against various baby food manufacturers, including Hain Celestial, Beech-Nut, Gerber and others. Each claim raises similar allegations that children developed autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) after consuming baby food products that were tainted with heavy metals, like lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium.

The litigation emerged after a 2021 Congressional report was released on the presence of heavy metals in baby food, which were found at much higher levels than expected. The report warned that infant exposure to these heavy metals may heighten the risk of serious developmental disorders, such as autism and ADHD, as well as other cognitive and behavioral issues that can affect a child’s development and long-term health.

As recently as 2024, another report found that popular baby food brands sold by Gerber, Beech-Nut, Sprout, Walmart and others still have potentially dangerous levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead, all of which can increase the risk of neurological side effects for children.

Baby food lawsuits filed by parents and caregivers accuse the manufacturers of placing profits ahead of the safety of the most vulnerable citizens, while actively concealing the presence of the contamination for decades.

Due to the common allegations and injuries raised in the claims, all federally filed toxic metal baby food lawsuits have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of California before U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

As part of the MDL process, Judge Corley directed the parties to prepare a group of bellwether trials, which are intended to serve as test cases to help gauge how juries may respond to evidence and testimony that will likely be repeated throughout the litigation. In preparation for those trials, each side was given the opportunity to challenge the reliability of expert witnesses expected to testify before juries.

These challenges are particularly important in product liability cases, where plaintiffs must present expert testimony establishing general causation, meaning reliable scientific evidence showing that a product is capable of causing the type of injuries alleged.

However, in an order (PDF) issued late last month, Judge Corley granted the baby food manufacturers’ motion to exclude all of the plaintiffs’ general causation experts from testifying at trial. The court determined that the experts failed to demonstrate through sound and currently accepted scientific methods that heavy metals in baby food can cause autism or ADHD.

In her decision, Judge Corley indicated that plaintiffs’ experts relied on unrealistic assumptions about how much baby food children consume, which resulted in inflated estimates of exposure to heavy metals. Since those same calculations were used by multiple experts in forming their opinions, the court found that the underlying methodology was unreliable. The judge also noted that:

“Even in an area of epidemiology marked by hundreds of studies, none has developed the data needed to support the causation conclusion Plaintiffs’ experts assert in this MDL.”

— Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, Order Re Defendants’ Motion To Exclude Plaintiffs’ Expert Witnesses

Judge Corley has scheduled a case management conference for April 2, during which the parties will discuss the next steps in the litigation, and whether any of the claims can move forward. She ordered the parties to submit a joint case management statement one week before the meeting.

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