Lead in NC children’s blood linked to kids fruit snack. Now parents are suing.

Last summer, North Carolina health officials were first to link a brand of apple puree to lead contamination in children’s blood. Now the lawsuits are mounting, including one recently filed on behalf of a Hickory family.

The recent suit focuses on a now-recalled product: WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit Puree pouches, which state public health officials discovered contained lead levels well over acceptable limits. Also recalled were Schnucks-brand cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches and Weis-brand cinnamon applesauce pouches.

Federal officials have concluded that hundreds of people nationally may have been affected by such fruit pouches.

The recent lawsuit was filed on Jan. 25 by Hickory couple Nicole Peterson and Thomas Duong, whose year-old son and three-year-old daughter began eating the fruit pouches early last year — and were later found to have sharply elevated lead levels in their bloodstreams.

”This is a nightmare no parent should ever face. Knowing that our children will have to live with the effects of lead poisoning for the rest of their lives is heart-wrenching. This serves as a wake-up call about the dangers that can lurk in everyday food products,” the parents said in a statement issued Wednesday.

The children’s blood was tested by their physician. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend children’s blood be screened for lead at ages 1 and 2 years, or later if they weren’t tested while that young.

The family was among the first to report elevated lead levels, and their experience helped lead to an investigation by North Carolina public health officials — and later nationwide investigations.

Their complaint is one of about a dozen suits nationally that have made such claims so far, according to Nicholas Williams, a Charleston lawyer representing the Hickory family. In October, a Wake Forest family filed a similar lawsuit after high lead levels were found in the blood of their one-year-old child.

The recent suit was filed in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where WanaBana is based. Dollar Tree, which sold the WanaBana fruit pouches, is also named a defendant in the complaint filed by the Hickory family.

In mid December, the FDA said that the recalled WanaBana pouches were still on the shelves at several Dollar Tree stores in multiple states, the lawsuit noted.

WanaBana has marketed its products to children, the lawsuit contends, noting that in one Instagram post the company stated: “Encourage your children’s imagination with a snack that will give them the vitamins and minerals they need for their growth. WanaBana is real fruit!”

Officials for WanaBana did not respond to The Charlotte Observer’s request for comment Wednesday.

Kristin Tetreault, a spokesperson for Dollar Tree, said in an email to The Observer that while the company can’t comment on pending litigation, “we take the situation very seriously and are committed to the safety and integrity of the products we sell.”

Dollar Tree locked its registers to prevent sales of the WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit pouches and instructed stores to remove the product from shelves and destroy the affected packages according to FDA guidelines, Tetrault said.

Insidious lead poisoning

While the effects of lead poisoning often aren’t immediately apparent, it can result in life-long health problems, particularly in children. It can lead to lower IQ, hyperactivity, behavior and learning problems, slowed growth, hearing problems, and anemia, numerous studies have found.

It’s not yet clear how the lead poisoning will affect the Hickory children, Williams said.

In a bulletin issued in November, the Food and Drug Administration noted that it tested a sample of WanaBana apple cinnamon puree from Dollar Tree and found it contained levels of lead that were 200 times greater than the proposed FDA “action level” for fruit purees intended for babies and young children. The action level is the level at which the agency typically steps in to help lower levels of chemical contaminants.

The FDA has cautioned consumers not to eat the recalled products, and to discard any packages on their pantry shelves. The agency has also identified high levels of chromium in the products. At high levels, chromium can also be toxic.

WanaBana, Weis, and Schnucks fruit puree pouches that did not contain cinnamon and are not part of the recall, have not shown elevated levels of lead, the agency noted.

The FDA last year found high levels of lead in cinnamon — collected from a plant in Ecuador —and used in the applesauce pouches.

“FDA’s leading hypothesis is that cinnamon used in these recalled pouches is the likely source of contamination for these products,” the agency’s bulletin said.

As of Jan. 22, the FDA had received 90 confirmed complaints potentially linked to the recalled fruit pouches. In addition to confirmed cases, the CDC has said there may be more than 300 others.

Williams, the Charleston lawyer, said the problems discovered in the WanaBana fruit pouches points to the need for stronger federal regulatory action to prevent spices containing lead or chromium from being introduced into food.

Above all, he contended, companies like WanaBana need to be more conscientious.

“What we’re seeing here is a classic example of a company that has prioritized its bottom line and its profits over the quality of its product — and more importantly to the health of its consumers, particularly children,” he said.