Enfamil Class Action Claims Infant Formula Contaminated with Insects

Cans of Enfamil Infant Formula are contaminated with insects that make babies severely ill, according to a class action lawsuit.

Plaintiff Paulina Rodriguez says her 10-month-old daughter became severely ill after she consumed Enfamil Infant Formula that had been contaminated with insects. She is suing defendant Mead Johnson & Company, the makers of Enfamil, for falsely advertising Enfamil as being safe for babies to consume.

Rodriguez says she started feeding Enfamil to her daughter A.R. in April 2016, not long after A.R. was born. On Thanksgiving Day 2016, while Rodriguez had company over for a holiday gathering, she says she discovered a red insect lurking in a can of Enfamil she had purchased.

Four days later, Rodriguez called Mead Johnson to complaint about the insect. The company asked her to send the can of Enfamil in for testing and offered her coupons and two free cans of formula.

Rodriguez says she assumed the one insect she found was an anomaly, and she continued using Enfamil. But the next month, she discovered another insect in a can of Enfamil Infant Formula.

At about the same time, Rodriguez says, A.R. became severely ill. She suffered from chronic diarrhea, vomiting, and a fever as high as 103 degrees. She was hospitalized with a urinary tract infection.

A.R.’s illness subsided after weeks of medical treatment. Then, in January 2017, Rodriguez says she found insects in two other Enfamil cans. At that point, she stopped using Enfamil entirely.

According to Rodriguez, she is far from being the only person who has found bugs in Enfamil. Her Enfamil class action lawsuit includes excerpts from news reports and online consumer complaints reporting several instances in which persons discovered insects hiding in cans of Enfamil Infant Formula.

Rodriguez accuses Mead Johnson of falsely promoting Enfamil as being safe for children when in fact the product’s contamination makes it a serious health hazard.

She challenges representations made by the defendant that present Enfamil as being “gentle nutrition tailored for infants,” supportive of an infant’s brain health and “tailored to meet the nutritional needs of babies aged 0 through 12 months.”

Rodriguez alleges she and putative Class Members relied on representations like these when they decided to purchase Enfamil Infant Formula. She argues that Mead Johnson is under a legal duty to alert consumers to dangers like those presented by the insect contamination found in cans of Enfamil – a duty that the company has clearly breached, she claims.

Rodriguez proposes to represent a plaintiff Class that would cover all persons who were exposed to the defendant’s representations within New York and who purchased the product in New York during the applicable statutory limitations period.

She seeks a court order requiring Mead Johnson to cease the allegedly unlawful activities complained of, to engage in a corrective advertising campaign, and to disclose all information it may have concerning the safety of Enfamil products. She also seeks an award of damages, restitution and disgorgement, and reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and litigation costs.

Rodriguez is represented by attorneys C.K. Lee and Anne Seelig of Lee Litigation Group PLLC.

The Enfamil Contaminated Formula Class Action Lawsuit is Paulina Rodriguez v. Mead Johnson & Co. LLC, Case No. 1:17-cv-02020, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.