A federal judge dismissed Monday a Philly-area teen\u2019s lawsuit accusing the county\u2019s largest food manufacturers of creating addictive and harmful ultra-processed foods that cause disease. <\/p>\n
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit was billed in December<\/a> by Morgan & Morgan attorneys as akin to the 1990s tobacco litigation that resulted in a global settlement of over $200 billion<\/a> and sparked policy changes.<\/p>\n Despite her concerns over \u201cthe practices used to create and market\u201d ultra-processed foods, and their negative effects on children, <\/b>District Judge Mia Perez found that the complaint didn\u2019t show a direct connection between ultra-processed foods and the illnesses of Bryce Martinez. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are simply not enough facts to suggest that Defendants\u2019 products caused Plaintiff\u2019s harm,\u201d Perez wrote in the opinion<\/a>. \u201cBasic pleading rules require Plaintiff to plead more than the mere possibility of causation.\u201d<\/p>\n Mike Morgan, an attorney with Morgan & Morgan, said in a statement that the firm is disappointed and evaluating its next steps. <\/p>\n \u201cThe scientific evidence demonstrating the addictive nature of these products is compelling, and we remain confident in the merits of our case,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n Martinez, who is now 19 and lives in Philadelphia, according to court records, was diagnosed with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and Type 2 diabetes when he was 16. <\/p>\n He consumed ultra-processed foods regularly throughout his Bucks County<\/a> childhood, including Bagel Bites, Sour Patch Kids, Honey Bunches of Oats, Hot Pockets, Pepsi, Minute Maid, Slim Jims, Chex Mix, CheezIt, and Starburst.<\/p>\n More than 50% of the U.S. diet is made of ultra-processed foods, the Centers for Disease Control said this month<\/a>. These products are full of salt, sugars, and fats, and contain preservatives, stabilizers, and dyes, among other additives. Studies have found that people consume more calories<\/a> eating ultra-processed foods. Consumption of these foods have been connected to harms that include Type 2 diabetes<\/a>, obesity<\/a>, cancer<\/a>, and cognitive decline<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: These Philly snack favorites could be at risk thanks to RFK Jr.\u2019s goal of banning synthetic food dyes<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n The lawsuit accused food giants \u2014 Kraft Heinz Co., Post Holdings, Mondelez International, the Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle USA, Kellanova, WK Kellogg Co., Mars Inc., and Conagra Brands. \u2014 of \u201cpredatory profiteering\u201d by using the techniques of the tobacco industry to engineer and market addictive foods, without warning of the dangers of repeatedly eating the products.<\/p>\n Martinez, the suit said, suffers from illnesses that \u201cdid not exist in children\u201d before the advent and proliferation of ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n The question in front of Perez wasn\u2019t whether ultra-processed foods are harmful to health. Instead, the judge was tasked with evaluating whether Martinez had a claim against the manufacturers. <\/p>\n \u201cPlaintiff does not allege how often he consumed Defendants\u2019 products, in what amounts, or when,\u201d Perez wrote. \u201cNeither does he allege when he ate Defendants\u2019 products in relation to when he received his diagnoses or even began experiencing symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition, the lawsuit doesn\u2019t identify exactly what foods Martinez consumed, Perez said. Instead it lists brand names, some of which encompass hundreds of foods. For example, the lawsuit says that Martinez ate from the Old El Paso brand, which includes 111 products, ranging from refried beans to corn tortillas.<\/p>\n \u201cBy naming over 100 brands, Plaintiff has put thousands of products at issue without any additional information to identify which caused his harm. That is unacceptable,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n None of the defendants responded immediately to a request for comment. <\/p>\n Ultra-processed foods have been a target of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s Make American Healthy Again campaign. The Food and Drug Administration announced in April that it would be phasing out petroleum-based synthetic food dyes<\/a> by the end of next year. And the agency is working on developing a definition<\/a> for ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge dismissed Monday a Philly-area teen\u2019s lawsuit accusing the county\u2019s largest food manufacturers of creating addictive…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,99616,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-175206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-ultra-processed-foods-lawsuit-martinez-dismissed","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115091295581698907","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}