One Bad Cinnamon Stick Spoils the Applesauce

When something falls like a lead balloon, it bombs: You know the saying about the bad joke. Lead, as chemicals go, is literally one of the heaviest elements. But there’s nothing remotely funny about federal health regulations that fail to keep lead and other toxic heavy metals out of processed baby foods in the US.

It gets worse: The FDA (US Food & Drug Administration) has announced that it is investigating whether manufacturers WanaBana, Schnuck’s, and Weis-brand deliberately contaminated cinnamon applesauce purees with lead-tainted cinnamon to add fake volume and increase the bottom line at the risk of our babies’ mental development.

The products in question are sold at discount stores: Walmart, Sam’s, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree. There have even been recent reports that Dollar Tree still stocks the merchandise despite the recall.

Confused Parents Sounded the Alarm.

The first red flags went up in late 2023 when multiple incidents of child lead poisoning were reported by parents in North Carolina. These were families that live in newer homes with no possibility of lead paint chipping off the walls or mixing in the ground. Their alert prompted the FDA to investigate and order a total national recall of WanaBana, etc., cinnamon applesauce pouches outsourced in Ecuador and imported into the US.

Before the recall went into effect, however, dozens more small children ages 0-6 suffered lead poisoning allegedly after eating the pouches. Now, several months post-recall, the toxicity numbers have zoomed past 500 across 44 states (as of this posting), the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) confirmed. The median age for adverse reactions is a little under 2 years old.

Soon after the recall, the FDA confirmed to Consumer Reports its darker suspicions that the manufacturers may have added contaminated cinnamon to the products on purpose to drive profits higher. WanaBana, Schnucks, and Weis are now all under investigation for outsourcing production to a facility in Ecuador where a suspicious industrial spice grinder is believed to be the culprit.

The cinnamon sticks originated in Sri Lanka, reportedly arriving in Ecuador uncontaminated, but leaving Ecuador mixed in applesauce shipments heading for U.S. Customs, now crushed to powder laced with excessive levels of lead. The Ecuadorian facility that processed the shipments is Negasmart (aptly named, huh), which supplies Astrofoods.

“We’re still in the midst of our investigation. But so far all of the signals we’re getting lead to an intentional act on the part of someone in the supply chain and we’re trying to sort of figure that out,” said Jim Jones, the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods.

But How Was This Allowed?

“There ought to be a law against it,” is the immediate reaction. Right, there should be and supposedly there is. But the food industry is nearly 100% self-regulated with scarce oversight. Worse, in this case the shipments routinely sailed through U.S. Customs minus any red flags, over and over again.

Commercial products categorized as food are murky territory when it comes to government safety regulations concerning the quality of ingredients, processing, and packaging of products manufactured to nourish our babies.

So, while many self-regulated manufacturers find ways to cut corners and/or source cheaper crops to hike profits, grocery store shelves have sometimes been stocked with contaminated baby foods containing up to hundreds of times the recommended safety level for heavy metals like inorganic arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and, in this case, lead and chromium.

Every Voice Raises the Volume.

It’s one thing to get the FDA’s attention and another thing to get the FDA to act.

The only way to break this chain is by making noise. Every time you file a lawsuit or take your case to court, national visibility and awareness spike. Every time skilled lawyers go up against a corrupt system and win, you/we gain more leverage to demand legislative change, which leads to tighter oversight.

Clearly, the honor system hasn’t worked.

One Bad Cinnamon Stick Spoils the Applesauce

Issues

Uber Wants to Stay in the Fast Lane with Safety.