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What's at stake: A U.S. House of Representatives report released in February confirmed what CR investigations have found: that many popular baby foods contain alarmingly large amounts of heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, and lead.
Young children are especially vulnerable to the toxicity of heavy metals, says James Dickerson, PhD, chief scientific officer at CR. The substances "have a disproportionately adverse effect on developing minds and bodies." Effects can include lower IQ and an increased risk of certain cancers.
The House report also found that not enough is being done by baby food companies and the government to minimize heavy metal exposure and that parts of the manufacturing processes may be contributing to the problem.
How CR has your back: The House report was conducted in response to testing by CR and other organizations. Our 2018 analysis of 50 nationally distributed packaged foods made for babies and toddlers found concerning levels of heavy metals—and found that organic foods were as likely to contain them as conventional foods.
CR provided data and analysis to congressional staffers working on the new report. We're calling on manufacturers and the Food and Drug Administration to take action, including establishing a goal of no measurable amounts of cadmium, inorganic arsenic, or lead in children's food.
What you can do: To learn more about the report's findings and how to reduce your family's exposure to heavy metals, read "Baby Food and Heavy Metals: What Parents Should Do Now."
Encouraging Competition
What's at stake: Vigorous competition among companies is essential to a functioning marketplace. Without it, consumers get fewer choices, prices often rise, and innovation tends to lag.
In recent decades, however, the federal laws that once helped promote competition among businesses have been chipped away at by courts, haven't been fully enforced, and were allowed to fall behind the evolving economy. The result: Unchecked anti-competitive mergers and conduct have enabled a massive consolidation of corporate power and a steady erosion of consumer rights and leverage. The unprecedented market dominance of Big Tech is just one very visible manifestation of these trends.
How CR has your back: CR worked closely with Capitol Hill policymakers to help shape the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act, introduced in February by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. If passed, it would reinvigorate America's antitrust laws by strengthening the government's ability to stop anti-competitive mergers and the kind of "exclusionary conduct" that companies use to muscle out their competition, and giving more resources to the underfunded agencies charged with enforcing antitrust laws.
What you can do: Go to senate.gov to ask your senators to support and co-sponsor the bill.
Shrinking the Digital Divide
What's at stake: Comcast, the nation's biggest internet service provider, recently drew criticism for plans to impose new fees on customers, including data caps that could have meant bigger bills for many users in more than a dozen predominantly Northeastern states and D.C.
The timing struck many as very unfair: Raising prices during the pandemic would hit cash-strapped families that depend on the internet for school, work, healthcare, and other essentials.
How CR has your back: CR advocates took to the media to urge the company to reverse course, and organized a petition drive that quickly garnered more than 70,000 signatures from fed-up consumers. Ultimately, after negotiations with the Pennsylvania attorney general, Comcast agreed to delay the caps and fees in the Northeast until 2022.
What you can do: Comcast should scrap the plan in other regions. Help apply pressure by signing our petition to Comcast to "Drop the internet data cap and fees!"
CR Progress Update
The same day in late January that a CR investigation into auto insurance pricing was published, the New Jersey Senate passed a CR-endorsed bill to stop insurers from using education, credit scores, and occupation to determine rates. CR was mobilizing members in New Jersey to contact their assembly members and urge them to support the bill. Our petition urging Geico and Progressive to stop the practice is now more than 40,000 signatures strong. And in February, another CR-endorsed bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that, if passed, would ban the practice nationwide.
Editor's Note: This article also appeared in the April 2021 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
