City Attorney David Chiu filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging that the companies employed tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry to design and market products intended to addict consumers. The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating California laws on public nuisance and deceptive marketing.<\/p>\n
Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThese companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused,\u201d Chiu said in a statement.<\/p>\n As ultra-processed foods have proliferated, rates of obesity, cancer and diabetes have increased, the lawsuit claims. According to Chiu\u2019s office, heart disease and diabetes\u2014both linked to ultra-processed foods\u2014are among San Francisco\u2019s leading causes of death, with higher rates of diagnosis among minority and low-income communities.<\/p>\n Representatives for Mondelez, Coca-Cola and Kraft-Heinz did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n The city is seeking restitution and civil penalties to offset its healthcare costs, along with a court order prohibiting the companies from engaging in deceptive marketing and requiring them to alter their practices.<\/p>\n Although the definition of ultra-processed foods remains under debate, researchers generally apply it<\/a> to many packaged snack foods, sweets and soft drinks made using processing techniques, additives and industrial ingredients, and mostly containing little whole foods.In a report put out by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in May, the Trump administration pointed to ultra-processed foods<\/a> as among the causes of an epidemic of chronic illnesses in children in the country.<\/p>\n The lawsuit marks the first time a municipality has sued over claims food companies have knowingly marketed addictive and harmful ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n San Francisco is represented by attorneys from Morgan & Morgan, the firm that was behind an earlier lawsuit over similar claims brought by a Philadelphia man, who said he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease as a 16-year-old due to his consumption of ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n That lawsuit was dismissed in August after a Pennsylvania federal judge said the plaintiff had failed to connect specific products<\/a> to his health conditions, a problem that could dog many similar claims.<\/p>\n Reporting by Diana Novak Jones in Chicago; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Leslie Adler<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a> Diana reports on product liability, litigation, mass torts and the plaintiffs’ bar. She previously worked at Law360 and the Chicago Sun-Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Item 1 of 3 Bottles of Coca Cola are displayed on a shelf in a supermarket October 29,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[45321,45322,1180,1117,1118,45323,10182,1122,1124,28876,1219,10187,17559,10188,10189,1220,1223,17557,1136,45324,45325,45326,45327,1139,17546,10183,7479,45328,1186,1150,45330,17537,17276,45320,45329,1157,7480,101,103,102,104,106,105,1162,1163,2767,7433,1181,7432],"class_list":["post-78574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-advmk","tag-advmk1","tag-amers","tag-bev","tag-bevs","tag-ccos","tag-clj","tag-cmpny","tag-cycs","tag-destlit","tag-destocabsm","tag-destocls","tag-destohlt","tag-destolit","tag-destoprod","tag-destousbsm","tag-destousdnm","tag-destoushem","tag-fobe","tag-fod","tag-fodpr","tag-fodpr1","tag-fotb","tag-gen","tag-hea","tag-judic","tag-legal","tag-mdia","tag-namer","tag-ncyc","tag-nrlpaocls","tag-nrlpaohlt","tag-nrlpaolit","tag-nrlpaoprod","tag-pub","tag-publ","tag-reuters-legal","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sftbv","tag-sftbv1","tag-tmt","tag-topicworld-us-california","tag-us","tag-usaca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Diana](\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/resizer\/v2\/https%3A%2F%2Fauthor-service-images-prod-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub%2Freuters%2F8460616a-39ff-455f-8177-96ca401da7e1.png?auth=3026d05874a59ca4eb0942c2f41a5e93d0198144d08e3f0bb5cb332e258e57e4&height=120&width=120&quality=80&smart=true\")
<\/a><\/p>\n