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Show Baby Food Manufacturer Sued For False Advertising NEW YORK LNS) A group of San Francisco mothers filed a lawsuit in early September against the baby food makers BakerBeech Nut Corporation, Cor-poration, for false advertising. The suit stems from a Baker Beech-Nut mass mailing which warned some 760,000 mothers of possible dangers resulting from homemade baby food. The mailer claimed that homemade baby food could cause "methemoglob-nemia" "methemoglob-nemia" or death resulting from the infant's inability to handle certain chemical nutrients in non-processed foods. The mailer also warned that homemade baby food could become contaminated by bacteria, bac-teria, and it implied that baby food made at home could be less nutritious than commercial products. pro-ducts. The women, who are backed by an expert group of nutritionists and pediatricians, claim that the Beech-Nut advertising campaign was not only misleading, but amounted to "scare tactics." Food contamination, they point out, can occur as frequently in commercial preparation as home preparation. According to Dr. Ann De Huff Peters, a pediatrician and teacher at the University of California at San Diego, methemoglobinemia is so rare that she has "never seen a case of (the disease) in 30 years of practice." Dr. Huff Peters claims that she has "long advised (her) patients to prepare their own baby foods, because home-prepared baby foods can be as nutritious, or more nutritious, than commercial products." The women are asking the San Francisco Superior Court for a preliminary injunction preventing Beech-Nut from sending out more mailers. The group also hopes to force the firm to publish corrective advertising. |