Posted By CotoBlogzz
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA - On the heels of the EPA’s Katrina in Flint Michigan, the California
attorney genera; Kamala Harris announced that because “Nabisco’s Ginger Snap cookies posed a serious public health
threat, potentially impacting the brain development of our children,” a consent
judgment was filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court and is awaiting
approval by a judge.
Attorney General
Kamala D. Harris, in conjunction with eleven California District Attorneys and
the nonprofit Center for Environmental Health, today announced a landmark
settlement with food industry giant Mondelēz International, Inc., formerly
Kraft Foods, for selling ginger snap cookies containing lead in excess of
California limits without the warning required by California’s Proposition 65.
A consent judgment was filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court and
is awaiting approval by a judge.
According to Harris, “The
levels of lead found in Nabisco’s Ginger Snap cookies posed a serious public
health threat, potentially impacting the brain development of our children. Parents
need accurate information to make educated food choices for their children.
.”
Under the settlement,
Mondelēz will agree to strict product sourcing and testing protocols that limit
lead in its Nabisco Ginger Snap cookies to no more than 30 parts per billion
per serving and will pay approximately $750,000 in civil penalties, costs and
attorneys’ fees. Additionally, the company will hire a food quality
auditor to train personnel, will fund ongoing independent auditing of its
products to monitor for lead, and will monitor supply chains to ensure raw
materials are within acceptable limits.
Lead is a neurotoxin
that primarily affects the central nervous system, putting children with
developing brains at a greater risk of suffering from the neurotoxic effects of
lead. While no safe lead exposure threshold has been identified,
California’s Proposition 65 requires a warning to consumers if they are exposed
to 0.5 micrograms of lead per serving per day. The FDA recommends that children
do not ingest candies that contain more than 100 parts per billion of lead.
The Attorney General’s
office and District Attorneys began their investigation of Nabisco Ginger Snaps
in 2013, after a Center for Environmental Health investigation into these and
other cookies containing ginger. Testing revealed that a serving of
Nabisco brand Ginger Snaps contained lead levels up to 9 times the level that
requires a warning under Proposition 65. Mondelēz was not providing any
Proposition 65 warnings to its customers.
.
Mondelēz is the world’s
largest manufacturer of processed snack foods. Mondelēz brands include Nabisco,
Oreo, Cadbury and Trident. Nabisco brand ginger snap cookies were the
subject of the lawsuit.
Wondering
if Harris will now push to outlaw cookies altogether, sans lead or
otherwise: For if you eat too many with
lead, you fry your brain, and if you eat enough without lead, you fry your gut.
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