Request for representation against Teva due to the recall of the Nutrilon; About 3,000 parents registered

Teva announced a little more than a week ago that a toxin called ceruleid had been discovered in the popular Nutrilon baby food, at the same time as similar notifications were received regarding baby food compounds in various brands around the world.

At first, Teva asked to return only certain batches in which the substance was found at a certain level. Later, the European Food Safety Authority set a threshold for the amount of the toxin that is allowed to be found in the product, and additional batches were found to be above the new threshold, and it was decided to recall them as well.

Last Friday, after it became clear that the source of the toxin is a raw material called ARA produced by a certain Chinese supplier, it was decided to request the return of all Nutrilon brand baby food compounds that contain the raw material from this supplier, regardless of the level of the toxin actually found in them. This is how the recall went on and expanded, and with it also the circle of babies who may be affected by the consumption of the product.

“We may see a claim of tens of thousands”

According to Attorney Davidovich, “the list of parents registered for the lawsuit is expanding, and if we now have 3,000 parents, from my previous experience in lawsuits of this type, we may end up seeing a lawsuit of tens of thousands.”

“The vast majority of parents report that their children did indeed have symptoms associated with this toxin – indigestion, vomiting and diarrhea. To this must be added the parents’ anxiety, since these are newborn babies.”

The ceruleid toxin is usually not life-threatening, but Attorney Davidovich mentions a case that occurred 12 years ago in Belgium, where a baby did die for this reason.

“We are mainly bothered by cases where parents returned the contaminated products and received currency vouchers to purchase other boxes of this compound, and then it turned out that the new Kosfas were also contaminated. We have documentation of several such cases,” he says.

At this point, as far as the Ministry of Health is aware, there are no other baby food compound companies in Israel that use the raw material ARA from the specific supplier, and no other sources of this contamination are known, so it is estimated that the chain of recalls will not increase beyond that.

Coin said that “the claim, as far as it was filed, has not yet been accepted by Nutrilon. Once it is accepted, we will study the claims and respond as is customary in court.”