WASHINGTON - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday proposed maximum limits for the amount of lead in baby foods such as mashed fruits and vegetables and dry cereals after years of studies revealed that many processed products contained levels known to pose a risk of neurological and developmental impairment.

The agency has issued draft guidance, which would not be mandatory for food manufacturers to abide by. The guidelines, if adopted, would allow the agency to take enforcement action against companies that produced foods that exceeded the new limits.

“This is really important progress for babies,” said Mr Scott Faber, vice-president of public affairs for the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit organisation that had urged the agency to take action to remove metals from foods. “We were grateful that FDA has and the Biden administration has made reducing toxic metals in baby food a priority.”

The new limits, aimed at foods for children younger than two years old, do not address grain-based snacks that have also been found to contain high levels of heavy metals. And they do not limit other metals, like cadmium, that the agency and many consumer groups have detected in infant foods in previous years.

Ms Jane Houlihan, research director for Healthy Babies Bright Futures, a non-profit, called the guidelines disappointing.

“It doesn’t go far enough to protect babies from neurodevelopmental damage from lead exposures,” she said. “Lead is in almost every baby food we’ve tested, and the action levels that FDA has set will influence almost none of that food.”

She said the limits would address some of the highest levels they had found but more broadly appeared to “codify the status quo”.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has said there is no safe level of lead for children, who more readily absorb the heavy metal. The FDA proposed setting a lead level lower than 10 parts per billion in yogurts, fruits or vegetables, and no more than 20 parts per billion in root vegetables and in dry infant cereals.

The limits “would ...